Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Huckabee's plans presented to Gurdon School Board

Gurdon Public School Superintendent Bobby Smithson enlightened the school board and others on hand about Governor Mike Huckabee's new school plan at Tuesday, January 21 meeting of the Gurdon School Board.

"I thought prior to Huckabee's speech he was going to make the cut off amount to be 500 students. I was shocked by the number 1,500," said Smithson.

Smithson said he believed the reason the topic has become so prominent is due to the Lake View case and the governor being able to use the lawsuit as a crutch for this new plan.

"I do not think this first draft of this educational plan is going to fly," said Smithson.

Ray Simon, the director fo the Arkansas Department of Education, met with teachers and other school official at Dawson's Co-op one day last week and tried to explain and answer any questions he could.

"Ray is a big school man, he has a long list of history of working in large schools. He is a smart man, but I am concerned about one man making a decision about all of our schools and him not knowing what it is to be us," said Smithson.

Smithson also reported the state board of education being on Huckabee's side at this time. He said that will give them the power to dictate what schools can or cannot do. Smithson said he thought the Legislature would have the last word, but now he isn't so sure.

"The bad thing is that this plan is copied from New Zealand. Big difference here," Smithson said.

Simons thinks that in order for students to get a rich education there must be at least 600 children present, according to Smithson.

Smithson said he recently was called by the superintendent of Prescott schools to attend a meeting.

"I didn't know what the meeting was about until I got there. The superintendents from Blevins and Nevada schools were present too. The Prescott superintendent was trying to convince the rest of us that Prescott was the central location for the new school plan and hoped we would agree. I just flat out told him, well I don't know what Gurdon is going to do because our people don't like Prescott or Arkadelphia and don't really want to go anywhere," Smithson told the board.

In other school business, the board was updated on the dressing rooms being added to the middle school gym. Smithson said he hoped they would be completed soon and everything was looking good.

The board approved to purchase a new air conditioned school bus to be used strictly as a trip bus for the time being and plans to purchase another one next year. Smithson and the board members agreed the students deserve to be comfortable when on trips and it will help with students appearances when they arrive somewhere not wind blown and sweaty.

Pat Talley thanked the board for last month's teacher pay raise.

Two new surveillance cameras were recently installed in the hallways of the Cabe Middle School. They are there for the students protection and to help school administrators to monitor the goings on during school hours.

Pam Runyan reported the second graders enthusiastically learning cursive writing since their return from Christmas break. Mrs. Stipes first grade recently had parents attend special programs by the students.

Also after the second nine weeks 170 students were placed in the good conduct club. The students must keep a 96 percent or above in conduct in order to participate.

Bonnie Ross reported that out of 266 students at high school, only 12 percent had failing grades at the end of the semester. No seniors were failing, 60 students in the junior class and 12 percent of them had failing grades, Sophomores have 68 students with 13 percent of them failing and the freshman class containing 75 students had a 20 percent failing.

Ross said it sounded bad, but it was an improvement and felt it would be getting better.

Gurdon's sr. High cheerleaders won first place in the regional competition recently and will be heading to state soon. The jr. high cheerleaders also placed first at regionals, however, there is no state competition for them.