Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Odom recognized for service on Board

Prescotts School Board kicked off its September meeting by recognizing former member George Odom.

Odom served on the Board for 17 years, but was forced to step down because of health reasons. A plaque was presented to Willie Wilson, dean of students, to give to Odom by Board President Kay Hendrix.

Doug Smith, coach of the Prescott High School golf teams, said both squads, boys and girls, won district, with the girls being runner up at El Dorado. They will go to state on Sept. 27, playing the Tannenbaum golf course. This, he said, is the first time the girls have qualified for state as a team.

The Board also approved a resolution to do business with Graphic Expressions and Pennington Screen Printing. Both businesses, Hendrix said, completed and submitted disclosure forms. These businesses are operated by two different school employees, and the disclosures are required by state law.

Janet Gordon gave a report for Prescott Elementary School, saying there are two new paraprofessionals working in the special education department. They are Linda Moore and Donna Grimes.

Teachers and staff, she said, participated in a district professional meeting, where they were given updated information on the Benchmark exams and state frameworks.

Tutoring sessions began Sept. 15, with about 60 students signing up in grades three and four. The students stay after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, getting extra instruction from 3:45-5:15 p.m.

Teachers at PES, she said, are attending monthly collaboration meetings where they were given the book Handbooks for Qualities of Effective Teachers to read, study and review. This time can be counted as professional development time.

PESs Arkansas Consolidated School Improvement Plan (ACSIP) has been completed and is ready for submission to the Arkansas Department of Education. This year PES has three priorities, math, literacy and special ed.

PES, Gordon said, currently has 388 students enrolled, this is down from 416 at this time last year.

Jayme Barnes, McRae Middle School principal, told the Board about workshops MMS personnel have been attending since school started.

At this time, she said, the faculty is involved in developing team strategies in accordance with the Middle Start Initiative program. This, she added, should be beneficial to the students in both behavior and academics.

She informed the Board enrollment is at 314 and holding, but this number is also down from last year.

Wilson gave the report for PHS, saying about 200 showed for open house in August.

The grade level meetings had a good turnout as well. However, these were done for freshmen, juniors and seniors, as the night the sophomores were scheduled was in conflict with the Nevada County Fair. But, the sophomore meeting will be rescheduled.

According to Wilson, the majority of concerns expressed by the Concerned Parents-Prescott Schools group have been addressed. CAPS members, he said, have been an asset to PHS.

A discipline report was presented to the Board, showing 66 infractions since school started on Aug. 19.

Of those, 34 were in school suspensions, three were out of school suspensions, five students received corporal punishment, four were punished for other reasons, one received a bus suspension and one had a counselor conference. In addition, there were seven sent to detention, four parent conferences held and seven verbal warnings given.

The reasons for ISS included 10 classroom disruptions, one bus conduct infraction, six tardies, five dress code violations, four insubordinations, seven truancies and one for profanity.