Aleta Posey has been named assistant superintendent in the Watson Chapel School District following a unanimous vote of the board Monday.
Posey is principal of Booker T. Washington Elementary School, a K-5 campus in the Little Rock School District. She was selected following interviews with the selection committee for the position and WCSD Superintendent Keith McGee.
“Her skill set as a turnaround and transformational principal is one that I truly believe Watson Chapel needs to help continue to transform our school district to support,” McGee said. “Her superintendent said, by far, she’s the best principal that he has.”
Posey has been credited with overseeing a huge growth spurt in reading skill among her students, McGee said. At Watson Chapel, she will serve as federal programs coordinator and help McGee oversee daily operations to help supervise schools.
McGee said he anticipates Posey’s start date to be Nov. 4.
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The district is establishing The Wildcat Store, a place where families of WCSD students in need can pick up needed items at no cost.
The store, expected to open on or about Nov. 18, will be located at Watson Chapel Junior High at the L.L. Owen campus on Oakwood Road. Goods, all donated by community members and business persons, will include food, toiletry items, clothes, school supplies and more.
“We’re just trying to have a little bit of anything. The families who need it can get it,” McGee said. A registration page for those families will soon be posted on the district’s website, he said.
In addition, some students are participating in a canned food drive contest to see who can raise the most cans.
‘Igniting’ reading excellence
Based on Renaissance Star test data from last school year, 64 of 109 Watson Chapel second-graders need improvement in reading by the time they are in third grade.
That was a piece of data Traci Holland, the district executive director for curriculum and instruction, shared with board members as she successfully convinced them to approve the purchase of Ignite Reading, a tutoring system for elementary students. Beginning in the 2025-26 school year, under the LEARNS Act, third-grade children who do not pass the reading portion of the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment, or ATLAS, will be retained at that level.
McGee said the percentage of current second-graders who need improvement was alarming. Details of how the Ignite Reading program will be rolled out in the WCSD are being worked out, he said, but it will be implemented during the What I Need, or WIN, Time in the daily schedule.
“They will get 15-minute tutoring, and we will start using assessment to track them and track that growth,” he said.
The district will spend at least $93,000 of federal funding for Ignite Reading.
Change orders
Board members said OK to a 4-foot extension of the auditorium at the new high school campus under construction next to the present high school. All high school auditoriums in Arkansas must provide at least 154,700 square feet of space, the district said, and the extension to the adjoining wall will allow the WCSD to meet the square footage requirement as well as seating requirements for the new gymnasium.
The board approved McGee’s request to reallocate about $75,000 in construction budgeting for a new dishwasher to providing additional seating at the auditorium/gym, in hopes of qualifying to host postseason basketball tournaments.
Personnel moves
Letters of resignation were accepted from counselor Theresa Evans, bus driver Thomas Shults and security guard Carl Banks Jr.
In addition to Posey’s appointment as assistant superintendent, the district also transferred Jessica Morgan from paraprofessional to physical education and assistant girls basketball coach, and approved personnel waivers from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for the continued employment of Dewayne Wright and Penny Waddle.