Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Students meeting requirements in district

Hyacinth Deon, superintendent of the Prescott School District opened the public school meeting Tuesday, Sept. 21.

By law, she said, these meetings must be held every year to inform parents and patrons of how things are going in the district.

Deon had a PowerPoint presentation for her portion of the meeting, and started with state and district expectations. To begin with, she said, high academic standards have been set for every child, with high staff accountability in place to monitor student performance. Now, she added, all students will be assessed.

All three schools in Prescott are accredited under the North Central requirements, and, overall there is a 12:1 student-teacher ratio.

Regulations for academic performance have been established by the Arkansas Department of Education, and students at Prescott Elementary and Prescott High School met the Adequate Yearly Progress report. McRae Middle School did not and is in year two for school improvement.

The district, she said, is meeting the no child left behind criteria. It offers remediation under the Academic Improvement Plan (AIP) for students not making adequate scores on the end of course or Benchmark exams.

To help these students, the district is offering AIP participation and will offer after school tutoring using the Title VI program in the second semester.

In talking about what's new in the district, Deon pointed out art and piano lab will be offered for students in grades K-4 next year. In the past, she said, schools could offer one or the other, but under new state guidelines must offer both.

Grade skills labs were instituted for students in grades seven and eight, while new software to help meet state standards has also been purchased. To help improve math scores, Everyday Mathematics Strategies has been bought for students in grades K-6.

For those in grades 5-8, she said, they will be working with the Southern Arkansas University Mathematics in the Middle program.

The state requires districts to have a high academic expectation for all students, with highly qualified teachers in all content areas for grades 5-12. Students in grades K-8 are to take both art and music under the new state guidelines.

To do this, she said, the district will require the support of parents and patrons. Students need to be serious about their education, and parents need to help their children stay focused on their academics.

Parents can also help by staying in touch with their children's teacher(s), check on their children while they're at school and know what's expected of their children by the district.

The district's goal, Deon said, is to prepare all students to be successful, caring citizens.