Bearcat Wrap-up Podcast

Happy Friday!

Thank you for all you did this week! In case you missed it in our District Updates done by Ms. Albin’s journalism students, here is a message to teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week. Our Facebook has been full of posts about the appreciation shown to you all by our community partners and parents. It has been a really good week of appreciation, reflection, and planning to bring us to the final full week of school next week, along with the anticipation of summer and a new school year full of accomplishments!

Speaking of accomplishments, our district goals continue to track well. The gap in discipline referrals is widening again but the end of school is always a challenge; so, keep your expectations high and your students busy. It is mathematically impossible for us to hit our attendance goal but our other two look to be attainable.

I want to take this opportunity to get some feedback about our district goals. I have created two Thought Exchanges - one for reflecting on all of our goals and one for reflecting on the goal we did not attain - attendance. Please take some time to complete these. This will help us this summer as we plan for next year. These will close on Tuesday, May 23rd, with results shared on Wednesday the 24th.

Investing The Appreciation

Probably the most meaningful Teacher Appreciation action that took place this year was the increases in your salaries paid through state surplus and LEARNS. Our leaders are better at recognizing the need for good teachers in every classroom and every school and they have taken action. Now is the time to not just improve your standard of living but to also prepare for your future.

In this Inc.com article by Elle Kaplan, she highlights the wisdom of Warren Buffet’s “20-Slot Rule”. This rule, “Improves your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches--representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. And once you'd punched through the card, you couldn't make any more investments at all ... Under those rules, you'd really think carefully about what you did and you'd be forced to load up on what you'd really thought about. So you'd do so much better.”

Now, it is good for our local economy for everyone to upgrade their housing and their vehicles and even to purchase boats or ATVs, but the point of this article is that some investment should be in savings. In the past, many young teachers did not have the ability to save but with these new salaries, you will. Be looking for an email blast from American Fidelity. They will be giving you an opportunity to have in-depth discussions this summer about investments and savings beyond teacher retirement and I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity.

Feed a Bearcat

At the end of the year we always have meal accounts that are in the negative and thank goodness for those who donate or work for our Feed a Bearcat account. This year, however, the funds in FAB do not quite reach the full debt. This is not a solicitation for donations. We have another plan but when the FAB fundraisers are presented, please take notice. In the future, we are planning ways to help without having to make donations. Also, if you owe a meal balance for yourself or your own kids, please get those paid so we can close out those negatives.

Closing

I want to recognize our Child Nutrition Team, especially Amy Bartow and Susan Bodey for the effort they have put forth on the district’s behalf. The latest news is a $20,000 grant from No Child Hungry and a portion of that grant will be used to buy new equipment for our schools. They will also continue our summer feeding while school is out. There is more about that and the additional backpack program supported by our community leaders in the next issue of RED Around Town, which I’ll provide a preview of in next week’s Wrap-up.

Do not worry about buying eclipse glasses for your students! The solar eclipse is happening next April but people are already getting ready and one of the early preparation being sold are the protective eyewear to view the eclipse through. Mrs. Simms has already made arrangements to purchase these for all of our students at Mena Public Schools so there will be some made available when the time comes.

Our Ladycat Soccer Team ended their season yesterday in the first round of the state tournament. Congratulations to those players for making it to the state tournament and having one of the most successful seasons in quite some time!

Last week, our Ladycat Softball Team finished out their season in the first round of the regional tournament and I want to congratulate them on a great season that included a conference championship and conference tournament runner-up.

Elliot Dugan, our track star who is the Class 4-A State Champion High Jumper, competed in the Meet of Champs against athletes from all classifications and finished sixth place. This is a tremendous accomplishment for a freshman!

The Mena FFA Alumni 2nd Annual Dinner and Auction is tomorrow at the Dallas Avenue Baptist Church Multipurpose Building starting at 5 pm. There are a lot of donated and student-made products to be auctioned off. Please support our school-affiliated fundraisers whenever you can!

Please use this form to notify us if this is your 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, or 30th year at Mena Public Schools or if you achieved major accomplishments this year such as an advanced degree or credential. We also want to recognize accomplishments in your classrooms related to our district goals. We will have our end-of-year celebration on Wednesday, May 24th, in the PAC at 11 am with lunch immediately after. Our lunch is being prepared by Christ Community Fellowship and it is sponsored by American Fidelity, RePops, Montgomery Shelter Insurance, Farm Bureau, Edward Jones, and Non-Stop Fitness.

It was a really good week at Mena Public Schools!!

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

Thank you for all you have done this week! All of the efforts we have put into our students have been recorded in the ACT Aspire testing portal. Testing our students satisfies what the state asks of us as far as our accountability to it, but we are still accountable to ourselves and this community for using our time and resources in the most effective ways to make sure our students (their children) are successful.

The trending of our District Goals is about the same; however, I can tell the end of the year is near because discipline referrals have gone up for the second week in a row. We are still above our goal of a ten percent reduction, but only by a fraction instead of the fifteen to twenty percentage points that we have been seeing all year. Attendance went down a tenth of a percent and we will provide one last reading level report at the May board meeting.

This week’s Wrap-up is full of news, information, and opportunity.

Dr. Luis Cruz

We are very excited to be hosting a statewide professional development session for educators with Dr. Luis Cruz. Dr. Cruz will present “Time for Change” at the PAC on Friday, June 16. The session will start at 9:00 am and will be a motivating, inspiring, and hopefully life-changing day for educators. Dr. Cruz will spend the day discussing transforming school culture. One must understand why teachers continue to hold on to the models or beliefs contrary to those put forth by their district or school. He will explore the human behavior and conditions that cause the underlying conflict among the four different types of teachers in a school: Believers, Fundamentalists, Tweeners, and Survivors.  He will discuss how school leaders can work with each group to create a positive school culture and fully realize our district’s mission and vision.

If you are planning to be in town on June 16th, please register for this professional development as one of your flex days. It is a statewide audience they are after so this will also be a great networking opportunity for those attending. You may register for the session in ESC Works here.

2024 Legislative Biennial Study of Educational Adequacy

The Arkansas House Committee on Education and Senate Committee on Education are conducting their biennial study of educational adequacy. The Policy Analysis and Research Section of the Bureau of Legislative Research (BLR) has been charged with facilitating the study. As part of that study, the BLR will survey all superintendents, charter school directors, principals, and classroom teachers in the state for needed information and input. Below is their schedule for sending out emails with the survey links to the recipients:

* Teachers start May 8, 2023, and end May 19, 2023;

* Principals start May 24, 2023, and end June 16, 2023;

* Superintendents start May 24, 2023, and end June 16, 2023.

The two committees on education make the funding recommendations to the House and Senate so it is very important that you respond to the survey if you receive one.  We have been assured that all survey responses are confidential, and no one outside their research group will have access to the responses that are provided.

Teacher Appreciation Day/Week

We had Teacher Appreciation Day on May 2nd and are looking forward to Teacher Appreciation Week next week, May 8th through the 11th. I am thoroughly impressed by the things our parents and businesses do for you all during these dates each year. Teacher Appreciation Day garnered many positive comments about local teachers in our papers and on social media. Nationally, Teacher Appreciation has grown and there are many resources dedicated to making this time meaningful, not necessarily by gift suggestions but in the way the profession is being honored and elevated.

For example, on Sunday, you may want to join the National Education Association, the National PTA, and Emmy award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph from ABC's hit comedy series, Abbott Elementary for a Town Hall kick-off of Teacher Appreciation Week. There will be a lively discussion with teachers, education leaders, community leaders, parents, and students about critical topics facing public school educators and students and the solutions our communities need to ensure every student has access to a high-quality, equitable, and inclusive education, regardless of family income, race, or where they live. Sign up here to receive a reminder when it's time to tune in!

Licensure Fee Waiver

A commissioner’s memo came out this morning announcing that at its regularly scheduled meeting on March 3, 2023, the Professional Licensure Standards Board discussed the Executive Order to Prioritize LEARNS and voted unanimously to recommend to the State Board of Education approval of a waiver of first-time teacher licensure application fees. The Arkansas State Board of Education voted unanimously to accept the recommendation of the Professional Licensure Standards Board. This will be very beneficial to some of you in the REACH program or who are using an alternative licensing program.

Those applying should continue to apply for the standard license through the online application but will not be asked to pay the application fee before submitting. If you have any questions, please contact the following: [email protected]  or [email protected].

Closing

School Lunch Hero Day is held annually on the first Friday in May in honor of each person responsible for providing healthy meals and snacks to millions of children across America. If you looked forward to tasty food and a full belly in school, you know exactly whom to thank for this. These include school nutrition professionals and those who serve the food in cafeterias. Each person responsible for making sure good food is handed out to students is a hero, and this day was specially designed to show them some love.

It is Nurses Appreciation Day tomorrow and School Nurses Day next Wednesday, the 10th. National School Nurse Day was established to foster a better understanding of the role of school nurses in the educational setting. School Nurse Day is celebrated on the Wednesday within National Nurses Week. National Nurses Week is May 6-12 each year. We certainly want to thank all of our nurses who serve our students here at Mena Schools! They are all fabulous individuals with hearts of service.

It is the end-of-the-year banquet season and we started with a great FFA Banquet Tuesday night. I want to thank Mr. Maye, Mr. Goodnight, and Mr. McCormick for creating such a great showcase of student learning and accomplishment. I also want to thank those of you who were also in attendance for supporting it and ask that if you have the time to attend any of our other banquets, please do so. It is a great way to see the variety of things our students are doing and a great way to see how your coworkers impact our students.

Love Productions has begun the casting process for the documentary series they are filming with Mena High School students. It is very exciting to have been chosen for this and very exciting for our students to be able to experience this! It will be a lifetime memory for everyone involved, especially those who will spend three weeks in London, England, and the Londoners who will spend three weeks with us.

Please use this form to notify us if this is your 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, or 30th year at Mena Public Schools or if you achieved major accomplishments this year such as an advanced degree or credential. We also want to recognize accomplishments in your classrooms related to our district goals.

Please complete the DMESC user satisfaction survey.

It was a really good week at Mena Public Schools!!

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

Besides the ending of April and the last full month of the 2022-2023 school year, this week also brought us closer to the end of our ACT Aspire testing window. The hay is nearly in the barn, as they say, and we will see how much impact we made on our students this year sometime in late June or early July. Thank you for all of the work you did leading up to this testing time and please continue to concentrate on this year’s District Goals using every bit of the time we have to ensure our students’ success.

End-of-the-Year Celebration

May 24th is the last contract day for most employees and it will be a day to celebrate accomplishments and milestones. Christ’s Community Fellowship has graciously offered to cook us lunch again and this year we will have some corporate sponsors to pay for our meal.

This event will take place at the Performing Arts Center (PAC) at Mena High School. Before the meal, we will recognize the years of service to the district and retirements. It will be a little different this year as we will not have everyone come down front individually. For the sake of time, we will announce the names and years of service, along with other pertinent facts about the people. Afterward, all who were mentioned will come down front to receive their mementos and have a picture taken.

To make sure we do not miss anyone, we ask that you use this form to notify us if this is your 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, or 30th year at Mena Public Schools or if you achieved major accomplishments this year such as an advanced degree or credential. We also want to recognize accomplishments in your classrooms related to our district goals.

New Operations Hero

Operations Hero is replacing SchoolDude around the state as the method for requesting maintenance. You use your school email account to sign in with Google and the link to the form to make a request is in the top-right corner. The form is much less daunting than the one in SchoolDude. The complete migration from SchoolDude to Operations Hero is taking place right now and all use of SchoolDude will end this month and it will no longer be available in June. Here is a document with several sets of training videos on how to use it.

Our transportation system uses SchoolDude for trip requests so we are working on another solution for next year.

Legislation and Policy

Our legislative session may be over but the wave of change in education continues. Our school administrators association has put together this list of educational acts that have now been signed by the Governor. This is the longest list of such acts that I can recall. There are a total of 131 new laws to be enacted. This also means that there will be new policies written for schools to accomplish the goals of these laws. This will take a lot of time for the legal team at the Arkansas School Boards Association, which provides the model policy service that all public schools subscribe to.

Speaking of rules, there is a new website dedicated to LEARNS and it contains a lot of information about the new law and its impact. Some of the information includes updates on the rules-making process and the committees that will be putting the rules together. If you applied to participate, the website is a good way to keep up with the information.

Closing

We had a wonderful performance given by our choirs last night. Big thanks go out to all the singers and our Choir Director, Mrs. Tilley, for making that happen. Make sure to see our Bearcat Band spring performance in the PAC tomorrow night.

We had a great group of Mena Middle School students compete in STEM Challenge today at Iron Mountain. This event is coordinated and sponsored by the DeQueen-Mena Educational Cooperative. It involves several science-based competitions in problem-solving and engineering. We had several winners and those announcements should be on social media soon.

Ladycat Softball qualified for the regional tournament this week and continues to play for a conference tournament championship today. Ladycat Soccer continues its postseason successfully and has already qualified for the state tournament. This is the first state-qualifying girls’ soccer team at Mena in nine years! Bearcat Soccer has finished its season with its first winning season in several years. We also know that we have several track athletes who have qualified for the state meet next week.

Please complete the DMESC user satisfaction survey.

It was a really good week at Mena Public Schools!!

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

This has been a very busy week for all of us with a lot of good news and results in all that has happened. Thank you for all of the progress you have made toward our district goals! I was happy to report to the School Board on Tuesday that 73 percent of our students are ‘on-level’ according to our methods of determination. This is a great testament to the work being done in all of the buildings and we should be proud of that feat. Yet, we still have work to do for those students who are not ‘on-level’ and we should always strive as educators to reach 100 percent of our kids!

The testing window for the ACT Aspire is open now and our students will all be done testing soon but we will not know if we actually hit our goal where the ACT Aspire is concerned until this summer. I will continue to emphasize that while that reading level from the ACT Aspire has an impact on our schools’ report cards, it is not as thorough as our methods of assessment, not completely aligned with our power standards, based on one day in a student’s life, and based on a score of 22 on the ACT by the 11th grade. I look forward to the coming years as Arkansas determines its own definition of grade-level reading and we have assessments aligned to our current standards.

As far as our other two goals are concerned, not a lot has changed. Our attendance did improve by one-tenth of a percent and our discipline is remaining on the same positive trajectory at 15 percent less than last year. I attribute our attendance improvement to the work done at Louise Durham. For the first time in months, their absenteeism has dropped below eight percent.

Recognition of Value

All of the good things mentioned above and in every weekly Wrap-up happen because of the people working in our schools. Not just here in Mena but all over the state. And even though there were disappointments in how LEARNS changed teacher pay, it is clear that leaders in our school district and state see the importance of educators and support staff and it has been shown over the last two years.

I looked at last year’s Wrap-up for this week and it included information about a coming raise in pay for all staff members. Fortunately, we are able to do it again, and this time with more funding and higher amounts than last year.

Girls of Promise

This was one of the meaningful events I failed to mention in last week’s Wrap-up. Mrs. Billings took four Mena Middle School girls to this conference on April 7th. This is an initiative of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, that exposes girls to opportunities and mentors in STEAM fields. The initiative’s goal is to increase the number of girls in higher-level STEAM courses and careers to put them on the path to achieving economic security as women. The annual Girls of Promise Conference is open to 8th-grade girls who are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math in Arkansas! Students learned about various STEAM careers, enhanced their skills, and met women mentors excelling in their fields. This was a good initial action as the Middle School prepares for a new Project Lead The Way program.

DeQueen-Mena Educational Service Cooperative

Both licensed and non-licensed employees who use the coop are asked each year to complete a user satisfaction survey. The DeQueen-Mena Educational Service Cooperative serves us and other schools in our area in so many ways that it is difficult to describe from one educator’s perspective what they do; so, they seek multiple perspectives to know how to improve. The coop plans and makes improvements based on your experiences with them and they do this using a user satisfaction survey. Please take some time to complete this survey. I know we pick and choose what surveys to respond to because there are so many put in front of us these days; but, the coop is a service that we need to make good use of and they need to know how we feel about their performance as an organization. I have filled out this survey and I would appreciate it if you would too.

Closing

Last week the Arkansas Rural Education Association announced scholarship recipients and one of our paraprofessionals was chosen! Congratulations to Stacy Green for winning the Paraprofessional Scholarship and for representing our district so well!

Congratulations to our softball team for winning the conference championship with no conference losses! Both baseball and softball will be competing in the conference tournament next week and all of our support is behind them.

I want to thank Amy Bartow for managing our Fresh Fruits and Vegetables grant. This week was a special treat because there was enough extra money at Holly Harshman to provide large fruit trays to the students there. It was a nice treat for those kids.

It was a really good week at Mena Public Schools!!

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

This is been a very busy week here at Mena Public Schools. Thank you all for all that you have done this week. Our goals are important, but to Wrap-up this week the primary thanks go out to everyone who is giving our students opportunities through numerous activities that took place.

In this Wrap-up I will rehash information from the meetings that took place at each building this week and follow up with all the things we are doing that make learning fun and meaningful.

Salaries

Thanks to all the staff members who came early and stayed late to hear about the salary schedule plan for next year. I want to give a basic summary of what I told you all for those who were not able to attend.

For starters, our current salary schedule is based on a decades-old law that requires a lane of salaries for bachelor’s degrees and one for master’s degrees with a minimum salary for each. The lanes also had to have at least fifteen steps with a minimum of $450 (BS) and a $500 (MS) increase at each step. That law has been completely repealed with nothing to take its place.

Many schools chose to go above the minimum expectations by paying more than the minimum amounts, adding more steps, or increasing the step amounts. The portion of a salary schedule that determines pay for administrators is up to the district and the law still requires that certified employees that work more than 190 days per year are paid for those extra days at their daily rate of pay.

When Governor Sanders increased the minimum salary to $50,000, that caused the current salary schedules to be unaffordable for just about all schools in the state.

The first response to this problem by all schools was to set next year’s salaries according to the LEARNS Act and freeze them at that amount. We have been advised against this plan and we need a salary schedule that will work in eFinance, our accounting system for the state. So, we have developed a salary schedule that looks just like the one we currently have but the numbers are different.

To meet the LEARNS requirements, all salaries in the cells of the schedule that were $48,000 or below were replaced with $50,000. All cells above $48,000 have $2000 added to them to reach the $50,000 minimum and cover the minimum raise of $2,000. Administrator indexes were reduced to keep their increase close to $2,000 and everything else remains the same. We have added experience stipends for veteran teachers of $500 for 15 to 19 years of experience, $750 for 20 to 24 years, and $1000 for 25 years or more.

The LEARNS Act provided no funding for classified salaries but we were given funds in our foundation funding to pay for those but the amount did not fully cover a $2.00 per hour raise. The legislature did find another source of funds for our employee insurance costs, which helped us to be able to afford a $1.50 per hour raise for classified employees. We will get over $900,000 in new funds from Governor Sanders and an additional $350,000 in foundation funding to help pay for these raises. The cost of the raises is still more than the new funding amounts but the district will be able to absorb that amount. Here is a link to the breakdown of costs versus revenue. All of these numbers are based on current staff.

Making Learning Fun and Meaningful

Our students are out there having a blast right now. They are demonstrating their skills and apply knowledge outside of the classroom in showcases and competitions. I want to mention these things as a brag about our district and the staff members who are making all of this possible. If I have missed any, please let me know and I will get it in next week’s Wrap-up.

* Lady Bearcat Softball is undefeated in conference play this season and will soon be in their district tournament.

* We hosted the Area 14 Special Olympics this week with a tremendous turnout and a lot of fun for the kids, their parents, and the staff who put the event together. Thanks to the Spotlight Singers for opening the games with our National Anthem.

* Bearcat Baseball won their 4th game this week against Cossatot River.

* The junior high track meet this week was very well attended. We had young athletes from all over the region competing.

* It was Senior Night for our girls and boys soccer teams on Tuesday. Both teams have had really good seasons as they get closer to the post-season. Our boys are in 3rd place and the girls in 4th.

* Our FFA members are at the University of Arkansas this weekend to compete in their state Career Development Event competitions. Each contest winner qualifies for the national contest.

* Three of our high school students had the opportunity to propose a new governmental policy to Senator John Bozeman. This was a great experience for learning the legislative process.

* Louise Durham Elementary hosted a spring picnic for students and their families today with more than 370 tickets sold.

* Today about twelve Mena Middle School students competed in the science fair at the University of Arkansas Rich Mountain. The majority of the participants were MMS students and we had several honorable mentions and a second-place project winner for coding. Thanks go out to all the teachers at MMS who helped them with their projects and to Cindy Brevick for taking those students to the Science Fair.

It was a really good week at Mena Public Schools!!

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Thursday!

We have a short week and a long weekend due to Good Friday. I hope you have had a good week despite the sadness that came from the loss of one of our students. Amanda Tolbert’s funeral was today. Despite the somber mood, it was very good to see many of our school staff attending to offer support and condolences to the family. Many staff members have poured their time, energy, and emotion into that situation, and the district thanks them for that effort. Even though we are suffering heartache over losing a student, it does not deter our mission that is set for so many more students now and in the future.

According to our district goals data, our efforts in the classrooms and offices continue on the same trends as they were before Spring Break. Attendance and discipline have been updated to include the weeks before and after Spring Break. Attendance rates remain close to the same and we are continuing to beat our goal for discipline. Our reading goal will be updated by the 18th, which is when our next board meeting will be.

In this week’s Wrap-up, I will continue with more of the vision for the state from Secretary Oliva and update you on further developments with our salary schedule and the new minimum.

Vision for Education in Arkansas

Secretary of Education, Jacob Oliva, spent a couple of hours with superintendents and business managers at the coop to outline his vision for the state. Last week, I wrote about what he plans for ELA. This week, I will share his message about math and the new Value-Added Growth report.

Math

Many of us remember how Common Core Math created a lot of controversies and how much of that was related to how math instruction changed to meet the new standards. The strategies used to teach math have evolved to become more conceptual in order to help students understand how numbers work. There were some side effects to this. First, parents did not understand the strategies because, in the past, we were taught procedures for math. Our new strategies were confusing and many parents could not help their children. Second, the focus on concepts decreased math fluency practice and many basic math skills have been diminished. Our students are not as capable of using math facts as quickly and accurately as they need to in order to be prepared for work and life.

Based on this information, the Secretary has charged our state department staff with rebuilding math standards and, just as with ELA, assessing those standards according to what students should have learned and constantly progress monitor. The standards will have a balance between math concepts and fluency and they will be expressed in a way that is easily understood by parents.

Value-Added Growth

The Secretary had the data scientists and code writers at the department create a data dashboard for schools to use. The dashboard is much more robust than the reports we have from the ACT Aspire even though it uses the same data. After the ACT Aspire, the dashboard will use the data from the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS).

The dashboard will display data in graphs and tables to help us understand the academic growth of a school, a student, and a teacher. We will be able to pinpoint areas of excellence and areas of need at every level. It will be a powerful tool for data-based decision-making. Here are a few slides with examples of the data display and types. I also think that based on the way this system is designed that it will be what the state uses to pay its performance bonuses to teachers.

This data is not as valuable now because the ACT Aspire is not aligned with Arkansas standards but this will change soon. When standards are built to be clear and concise and assessments are created to assess how well the students learned the standards. The data we get from this system will be very meaningful and informative to improve teaching and learning.

Salary Schedule

This issue has evolved since my plan was laid out for the board a couple of weeks ago. Superintendents and business managers from around the state, and especially within our coop, have collaborated to come up with a salary schedule that remains very similar to what we have and honor the daily rate of pay based on the new minimum without having to suffer a large increase in unfunded amounts. I will be scheduling meetings in the buildings starting next week to explain this to everyone and answer questions.

Legislative Update

Since the session is about to end, there has been a flurry of new bills. Here are some you may be interested in:

* SB510 - Irvin - TO AMEND THE CRITERIA CONSIDERED IN A SCHOOL DISTRICT'S REDUCTION IN-FORCE POLICY. The current policy for RiF is based on seniority. This bill changes that requirement.

* SB512 - Irvin - CONCERNING SCHOOL DISTRICT PERSONNEL POLICIES; AND CONCERNING A SCHOOL DISTRICT COMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL POLICIES. This bill requires that PPC meetings be recorded and made public.

* SB556 - J. Dotson - TO CREATE THE RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINT ANTI DISCRIMINATION ACT. This bill protects students who express religious views in class or at school.

* SB571 - J. English - TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS CODE TO CLARIFY WHICH INDIVIDUALS ARE REQUIRED TO DEMONSTRATE PROFICIENCY IN KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES OF SCIENTIFIC READING INSTRUCTION. This adds more special education teachers to the list.

Closing

Congratulations to our Bearcat Band for the Superior rating they earned in the competition this week! Our FBLA students had an outstanding performance in their contests, too. Their competitions are based on real-world jobs and talents and it means a lot when our students are performing well.

We have also recently recognized our assistant principals, librarians, and paraprofessionals and I want to thank all of them for their effort in helping us make Mena Schools successful at achieving our mission and vision.

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great long weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

I hope all of you had an enjoyable Spring Break. Whether you traveled or camped or just stayed at home to catch up on chores, I hope there was enough time to rejuvenate and prepare for the final stretch of this school year.

Thank you for all you did in this returning week to help us reach our district goals. This data is not updated all the way to week 27 yet but it will be early next week.

This week’s Wrap-up will contain information from the events of the week, including the things happening with LEARNS.

Board Meeting

On Monday, we had our March board meeting. Here are the minutes if you have not read them yet. Instead of rehashing all that is in the minutes, I will emphasize one key piece of information that I gave the board and that is the impact of LEARNS and the impact of the new minimum salary. I also explained to the board that the plan presented in the minutes was not official yet and that I would bring something official to the April meeting for their approval. One thing we have learned from this session is that things change on a daily basis and things are constantly evolving.

Career Ready Communities

On Tuesday and Wednesday, a group of Polk County educators and community leaders met in a two-day BootCamp at National Park College in Hot Springs. The event was run by ACT Work Ready Communities and it focused on the alignment of jobs in the area and the skills needed to be successful at those jobs. The alignment is done through the National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) program and businesses that adopt the NCRC as part of their hiring process will receive free support from ACT Work Ready Communities to develop job profiles. The team that went through the BootCamp will be educating local businesses about this system and assisting them in establishing it with the end goal of having a correctly skilled and correctly placed workforce.

Secretary Oliva’s Visit to DMESC

On Wednesday, our new Secretary of Education, Jacob Oliva, came to the DeQueen -Mena Educational Service Coop to lay out his vision for education in our state. Aside from the financial concerns of paying for the new minimum salary, the meeting was very encouraging. There is much to share that I cannot put into one Wrap-up but for today, I will begin with his vision for English Language Arts.

The Secretary provided some great insight to us as to why Arkansas has such a low number of students reading on grade level. Simply put, the reason is that it is based on the fact that ACT makes our test and according to ACT, college readiness means scoring a 22 on reading as a senior. The secretary went on to ask how many kids still get into and are successful in college who did not score that highly and said that Arkansas will determine its own definition of what grade-level reading ability means.

We have one more year of the ACT Aspire, so we need to make sure our parents and community understand that not being on grade-level reading does not mean that they cannot read. We need to emphasize the means of measurement we are using for our district goals that our Interventionist Team has created and be prepared for our numbers and the ACT Aspire numbers not to correlate precisely. Furthermore, we need to emphasize that our assessment is ongoing while the ACT Aspire measures one day in the academic life of a student.

I will be putting more information from the Secretary in future Wrap-ups and share in other ways when I have the opportunity.

Project Lead The Way

Let us congratulate Mr. Coogan and Mrs. Warner for the successful grant application to begin a PLTW program at Mena Middle School. Here is an excerpt from the letter announcing the successful grant application and providing some information as to what PLTW is about:

I am pleased to inform you that your school has been selected as a recipient of the 2022 Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Grant from the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) funded by Walton Family Foundation. Congratulations!

The selection committee was very impressed with your school’s commitment to advancing STEM education in 7th and/or 8th grade, and we believe that this grant will help further your efforts. We are confident that this grant will enable your school to continue to inspire and motivate students to pursue careers in STEM fields.

Your school has been approved for funding to implement your requested courses in full.

Learning Ally

Mrs. Salisbury informed us today that Mena has received more recognition for our dyslexia efforts through Learning Ally. Below is the announcement:

On behalf of Learning Ally, I would like to congratulate you on being selected to be honored at our annual Spotlight on Dyslexia conference for your district’s tremendous work in advancing literacy outcomes. This award is intended to honor districts on the leading edge of best practices in making advancements in aligning to the Science of Reading, understanding the whole child when it comes to literacy, and effectively using Learning Ally’s solutions in this work.

Mena School District's hard work and dedication have stood above the rest. Your commitment to education has touched staff, students, and families and epitomizes the spirit of the Learning Ally vision. Your district's efforts are truly inspiring, and we want to recognize this monumental work as an exemplar for other districts. 

Adaptive Playground Equipment

I received a letter this week from Arvest Bank that Mena Schools was receiving a grant from them for adaptive playground equipment at Louise Durham Elementary and Holly Harshman Elementary. Prior to getting the letter, I did not know that we were being considered. I learned that this was the work of Shanda Craig, Emilee Johnson, and Rebecca Sprague. Now, our special needs students will have playground equipment that is suited to them and for them. We thank these educators and anyone else who may have helped bring this new resource to our students.

Closing

It was a very busy week, but it was a good week at Mena Public Schools. The legislature continues to meet and the number of education bills continues to grow. Instead of listing them, I encourage you to seek them out and learn about them.

Thoughts and predictions about LEARNS continue to be given in our Thought Exchange. Review what has been said and add your own.

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

This week’s Wrap-up will be short so you are not left with a lot to think about as you start your Spring Break this afternoon. I will update you on our district goals and provide some other short pieces of information.

* Thank you for all that you did this week to help us reach our district goals as we keep trending in the right direction. Even attendance inched up a little bit. Although I will not have any hard data to report on literacy at the next board meeting, the work being done at Louise Durham and Holly Harshman is indicating positive results.

* The legislature has still not released our per pupil funding amount for next year; so, our revenues are still unknown. Secretary Oliva has been visiting coops and during his visits, he has said that we can expect the increase to be somewhere between $100 and $200 per student. This amount will have to cover the increased cost of insurance and a raise in classified employee pay.

* Please apply to serve on one of the LEARNS rules-making committees. This is open to all who have an interest - certified, classified, board members, parents, etc. Here is a link to the Commissioner’s Memo with more information and the application in a Google Form. The form is short but you will have to submit a resume. Be a part of shaping the history of education in Arkansas!

* Mena has been allocated nearly $168,000 for safety improvements and we submitted our plan to the state today. They intend to fund projects according to the priorities determined by Governor Hutchinson’s School Safety Commission. Mena has many of the priorities already in place so to meet the requirements of the grant, we will focus on secure fencing, door locks at Holly Harshman, better signage, front entrance security, and door prop alarms.

* There has not been much participation in the Thought Exchange about LEARNS but it remains open until March 31st at the link above. Here are some results thus far.

* Congratulations to Holly Harshman’s Principal, Mrs. Smart, for being recognized as one of Polk County’s Women in Business! You can see her story in The Polk County Pulse.

* Congratulations to our baseball, softball, soccer, track, chess, theatre, and FFA judging teams for all of the successes this past week! It has been a fabulous week of performance for a large number of our students who showcased their skills and talents.

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend and Spring Break!!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Before I get into the Wrap-up and the latest on LEARNS, I want to pay homage to one of our school district’s greatest supporters who has passed away, Buddy Bean. Mr. Bean was a Bearcat supporter for a long time and without him, our Ballfields at Union Bank Park would not exist. He assisted the district in other initiatives and improvements and has been honored by the Mena School Board for his benevolence. On behalf of our board members, administration, and staff, our prayers are with his family at this time.

Happy Friday!

No matter how eventful Week 26 has been, nothing is more impactful that your daily effort to reach students and ensure their learning! Thank you for all the effort this week because it mattered most. I know there is more happening now as spring approaches because our discipline referrals have seen a slight uptick. We are still way ahead of our goal but the gap between this year and last year is a bit narrower. The approach of springtime always makes kids more rambunctious but we should see discipline slow down again after Spring Break. So, let us keep our focus and do what is right for our students.

Our elementaries are putting more ideas into action to address attendance and literacy with positive results already showing. I look forward to sharing the latest numbers after their efforts have more time to make an impact.

The Evolution of LEARNS

On Tuesday this week, House of Representatives amendments to SB294 were approved by the Senate Education Committee and passed by the Senate to become Act 237. LEARNS is now the law that schools will work under if they accept any public funds to educate students. The primary amendments were those concerns I wrote about in last week’s Wrap-up dealing with Teacher Fair Dismissal and salary schedules. School districts will build some kind of salary schedule and the right to a board hearing is back in the law for employee termination or non-renewal.

We are inching closer and closer to the clarity of what this law will mean for educators and students but there is still much uncertainty. There is still no appropriation recommendation for the adequacy of school funding, which is our foundation funding. Last week, I wrote that the amount of $8,129 per pupil was mentioned and that anything close to that would be great. This week I have learned that we may only get an increase of two percent, or $148 per student.

Educational administrators are emphasizing to lawmakers the expenses that have increased for school districts and are not adequately funded such as the increased district cost for employee insurance increasing to $300 per month, per employee, when last year it was $199. We also have to supplement therapy services on a yearly basis because Medicaid does not cover 100 percent of what is prescribed to our students. During this session, there was testimony that Medicaid did pay 100 percent but that is completely untrue. While I was Superintendent at Horatio, we used district funds to cover gaps each year ranging between $14K to $16K. This year the Mena School District will be supplementing over $35K for therapies. We do not know exactly how much yet but our budget is already exhausted and this is an expense we cannot modify to make ends meet.

Our maintenance and operations expenses are always above what is funded and the new requirements in LEARNS for early childhood are still a concern due to the staffing needs it will require. We also must provide a pay increase for our classified staff.

All of our planning for next year’s budget is in limbo and we are only guessing until the legislature comes out with a solid amount of foundation funding. We are carefully watching SB149 to amend the foundation funding amount for the 2023-2024 school year to be $8,195 and for the 2024-2025 school year $8,370. In addition, the bill would increase the base classified hourly wage to $15.00. The Senate Education Committee voted to table this bill, however.

Not all is bleak. There have been more bills filed that favor public education and level the playing field for us. For example,

* SB369 – Senator Dotson – This bill sets forth a process for students to receive weighted credit for career education courses and converts the graduation requirement of a computer science course to a career education course.

* HB1205 –Representative Wooten – This bill would require any school, whether public or private, that receives public funds to provide transportation to any attending student within thirty-five (35) miles.

* HB1206 – Representative Carr – This bill would provide that any student who resides in Arkansas but is not attending a public school or a student who resides outside of Arkansas and transfers into an Arkansas district would be excluded from being calculated in the schools rating for two (2) years after starting to attend a public school in Arkansas. The sponsor pulled the bill to allow for additional amendments.

* HB1238 – Representative Cozart – This bill includes adjustments to the Enhanced Transportation funding amounts for each district for the upcoming biennium. This bill has passed in House Education Committee and House floor and has been transmitted to the Senate Education Committee. This bill has passed in both Chambers and has been transmitted to the Governor.

* HB1345 – Representative Tosh – The bill increases the tax deduction provided to teachers for purchases for their classrooms from $500 to $750.

* HB1516 – Representative Lundstrum – This bill allows a district to enter Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with businesses for the business to provide a subject matter expert to assist in the teaching of that subject matter.

* HB1540 – Representative Vaught – This bill requires any student who withdraws from public school for one (1) year or more to take a placement exam to determine what grade the student will be placed in if the student returns to public school.

* HB1539 – Representative Vaught – This bill repeals the requirement for districts to enroll expelled students in a digital course. We would still use our Second Chance program at Mena but expulsion would be a more serious consequence compared to what it is now.

* HB1538 – Representative Vaught – This bill prohibits districts from requiring more than thirty-six (36) hours of annual professional development.

Closing

There are many more education bills filed and I encourage you to read more about these bills that will impact all our lives in some way. Use the Arkansas Legislature page to track what is happening on the chamber floors and in the committee rooms. I hope our Civics teachers are using this time to show the legislative process to our students, too. I understand that there is opposition prepared to file lawsuits in the very near future; so, this appears to be shaping up into another historical period of time for Arkansas.

I have closed the Thought Exchange about LEARNS as a bill. Use this link to see the final results. I have also created a new Thought Exchange to get your predictions of what this new law will do for our community. Please participate.

All while this is going on, our students continue to grow and our staff continues to train and grow with them. Springtime means soccer, baseball, softball, track, FFA judging and leadership contests, drama presentations, band contests and concerts, and much more. All these things to help us remember our purpose and focus on our whole vision and mission.

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com

Happy Friday!

Thank you for all you have done in Week 25 to meet your own professional goals, your students’ goals, and our district's goals. Our efforts are gaining dividends for our students each week as we progress through the year, but these past two weeks have made working in education more interesting because of the things happening in Little Rock. It appears that SB294 will become the LEARNS Act and completely transform our system of education.

For decades educators have seen reform initiatives come and go. Because of this pattern, one of the commonly repeated mantras among educators is “This too shall pass”. Meaningful public education reform on a large scale really has never lasted in Arkansas or the United States, but there has always been a part of the reform that has staying power, such as standardized testing. Understanding that I have tweaked that mantra a little bit by saying, “This too shall evolve”, and this is true because we have seen it happening to LEARNS since it was released on February 20th.

I will use this Wrap-up to inform readers about the latest evolution of SB294 that comes out of the many questions the language of the bill created and the testimonies given by so many people.

Salary Increases

There has been a concern or question spreading across the state that teachers’ salaries will be capped at $52,000 but that is not in the bill. Teachers are guaranteed a minimum of a $2,000 raise. The base minimum teacher pay will be $50,000 and the state is paying for the raises in perpetuity. Separately, school districts will continue to receive adequacy funds, which increase every two years. This is what districts currently use for step increases. They will have this money to put in step increases in a manner they decide best suits their district. The $50-$52,000 is the starting point, not the ending point but school districts will have to build new compensation packages that can have steps for educational attainment and experience.

I spoke with Secretary Oliva directly on Wednesday along with a few other coop superintendents and he explained that we would still receive the usual matrix per pupil funding, otherwise known as foundation funds, and that if we are making ends meet now, the new raise would not negatively impact us. We have also learned that there will be an increase in foundation funds so we will be able to afford classified salary increases. Representative Brooks stated this week that the new per-pupil amount would be $8,129, but he has since backtracked on that exact number. Our current amount is $7,413, so if we receive anything close to the $8,129 that was spoken, that will be a good increase to properly fund schools.

Additionally, the bill says that school districts must spend 80 percent of the state foundation funding they receive for teacher salaries on teacher pay. They also must publish that information on their school website for transparency purposes so teachers know how much money local districts are putting towards teacher pay compared to what the state is sending them for those salaries. This year, Mena is at 85 percent and there are only two districts in the state who do not already meet this potential new mandate.

Vouchers

There has been much concern expressed about the voucher money going to homeschoolers without accountability. In the conversation I had with Secretary Oliva, I explained that sometimes parents in our district choose the homeschool option when faced with the consequences of their students being chronically absent. He stated that we could address issues like this during the rule-writing process and that there will be accountability for parents who use state funds for homeschooling. He shares the same concerns as we do.

There are also accountability measures for those receiving Educational Freedom Account (EFA) funds. Money will never make it to the hands of parents. Funds will be put into an account specific to the student. There are “qualifying expenses” and “non-qualifying expenses” that the money can be used for. For private schools, payments will be made quarterly to those schools on behalf of the student. These funds will be audited annually. If someone is found to be misusing funds, their account will be closed and turned over to the Attorney General and Inspector General. There will also be a hotline for people to make anonymous tips for suspected misuse of funds. In year one of this plan, the ESA fund will be capped at $6M limiting the number of students who may access it.

Additionally, all students who take EFA funds will be required to take a year-end assessment as determined by the state board. This could be the same assessment required for students attending public schools or a state board-approved nationally recognized norm-referenced test. The Dept of Ed will develop a process to publicly disseminate the aggregated reporting on those testing results.

Amendments and Rules

We have seen the amendments we have asked for but there are a few concerns we still have:

* The amendments requested for the Teacher Fair Dismissal stricken from the law have been added to assure due process within the language of the bill.

* We are concerned about the service learning requirement, as well, especially for underprivileged and rural students. We have explained how ninth and tenth graders take full course loads to assure on-time graduation should they fail a course and that the service learning requirement could create difficulty for these students who have to make up courses.

* We want to be sure the maternity leave partnership includes both the daily rate of pay for the employee and the cost of a substitute. That is not clear in the bill at this point.

* Course choice is also a concern without specifics due to the logistics of what the bill implies it will be. Implications are that students will be able to take courses at multiple schools as long as schedules and transportation allow.

* The transportation innovation grants language in the bill implies that transportation means can be expanded to contract with private citizens and the sharing of buses among school districts and other agencies with large-scale transportation.

According to Secretary Oliva, educators and administrators will be directly involved in the rule-writing process and many of these concerns that still linger can be addressed and resolved when this is happening. It will also take a long time to finish all of the rules and procedures this law will create.

Closing

SB294 has already evolved into something more palatable. Since it was released, many educators have weighed in on the wonderful things in the bill while still having reservations about other things. The democratic process has been working to shape this bill into something better and as we work on rules and finally have them in place in schools, the impact of the bill will surely continue to evolve and change the way we do school.

You should listen to the testimony given this past Tuesday night by educators and parents speaking for and against this bill and learn some of the ideas behind the perceptions people have about education. You may view a recording of the House Ed Committee meeting Tuesday at this link and all other meetings are archived at this link.

Here is the latest from the Thought Exchange and it remains open at this link.

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bearcatwrap.substack.com