Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

School board recognizes DI teams

Prescott's Destination ImagiNation teams were recognized at the Prescott School Board meeting.

The team's mentor, Phillip Holtoff, said the senior and junior high teams will be representing Prescott in the global challenge at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, competing against 35,000 students from around the world.

Holtoff compared DI to an Olympics of the Mind, as the students pick their challenge early in the year, then handle it from start to finish on their own.

The Prescott High School group, he said, chose to be entertainers. They designed the set, props and wrote out a skit. They also came up with the music for their performance and made the costumes. This was all done for less than $100, which is the limit for DI.

Parents, he said, got involved, but weren't allowed to help with the building.

PHS's team did its section on mimes.

DI teams are supposed to have seven members, but the PHS team only had five, and the McRae Middle School crew wound up with only three.

The MMS bunch won regionals, but lost state by not being able to complete the instant challenge within the time allotted.

Holtoff said this is the second year for Prescott to be involved in DI, and he would like to see it expand to include all three schools.

On the instant challenge, he said, teams are given a task, but have no forewarning about what it is or what they will have to do.

At the regional competition, the MMS team won the Da Vinci Award for completing the task, and added the Renaissance Award this year.

"These students gave up weekends and evenings to work on their projects," Holtoff said.

Jason Himes lauded the EAST Lab students for making their project this year.

The project, called Vision Mission, helped Central Baptist Church with its medical mission. This was done with the students, primarily Manuel Stuart, designing a database program to keep up with eyeglasses given to the natives.

PHS Principal Carroll Purtle is with the mission group which goes to Mexico each year to provide eyeglasses for the needy.

The program developed by EAST Lab students provides a running inventory of the prescriptions on hand.

Purtle said this will allow the mission group to serve at least 400 more people this year.

Prescott Superintendent Hyacinth Deon said the East Lab and Destination ImagiNation students are able to think on their feet and don't just regurgitate facts.

Willie Wilson, dean of students, addressed the board, saying good things have been happening at PHS and need to be showcased to let the public know what's going on.

He said PHS is closing the gap on achievement and is moving the thinking of lower level students up.

Students, he said, have been taking mandatory tests, such as the SAT-9, with the Algebra I test to be given later this month and the Geometry test scheduled for May.

PHS students will be given the option of taking the Armed Services Variable Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test, as it isn't required.

Court referrals have declined in the past month, Wilson said, dropping from 12 to 2. The district, he added, has a good relationship with the local court system, along with other alternative educational systems.

There has been a reduction in discipline problems, he said, because the administration is more pro-active and is keeping its ear to the ground and listening to what students are saying.

The handbook, Wilson said, should be ready by June, possibly in late May. It will be thinner than in years past, as Purtle has gone through the handbook to find out what does and doesn't work. What works stays, what doesn't goes.

The board approved out of state travel for the DI team to attend the global competition May 19-24. The district will pick up the tab for gas, registration and food as the students will be staying at UT.

The students will be raising money for other activities they plan on participating in while there.

The Prescott District Education Association (PDEA) report was given by Tammy Phillips.

She said members attended the district council meeting hosted by the Hope Education Association. Schools in Zone 3 were invited to discuss proposals by the legislature and voice their concerns on issues schools face.

The PDEA was represented by three members ta the Arkansas Education Association Representative Assembly in Little Rock, earlier this month. They helped plan a partial state agenda and budget for next year.

In May, the PDEA will host the Zone 3 district meeting, and is accepting applications for the Dorothy Odom Scholarship.

Deon told the board the calendar for the 2003-2004 school year has been approved, and Spring Break will be later in April because it has to be worked around the standardized tests.