Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Committee forms to boost grades

A group of nearly 20 volunteers met at the high school on Thursday night to kick off a plan of action for helping students in the Gurdon School District who achieve low grades to boost their work up the ladder.

Chairman for the newly formed Closing the Achievement Gap Task Force is School Board member Col. Charles Bullard.

Col.Bullard said, "We just formed our main three committees tonight. This matter will have to be studied, but we will work on minimizing low achievement in school. Well meet again in February and then decide whether meeting every month or by the quarter in the future might be best."

The next meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 16 at the high school student center. Superintendent Bobby Smithson said the task force formation has been mandated by the Arkansas Legislature, "but we were given no funding to use for the task force."

Mayor Clayton Franklin, who became a committee member that night, asked why the state expected the task force to commit hours and effort to a mandated problem of this magnitude and neglected to give the schools any funding by which to conduct business?

The mayors question drew considerable laughter from the crowd of volunteers. Smithson repeated his standard answer regarding state finances, that he has voiced in School Board meetings on several occasions.

"Mayor, there are several laws and mandates currently being imposed on the Arkansas school districts with no money attached to accomplish the legally dictated tasks," Smithson said. "We intend to form this task force, get it functioning in a useful manner to help close the achievement gap in our student body and keep it going. If I am going to take the time of all of you volunteers, it will be my goal that our three committees produce something worthwhile for the children at risk."

Steering Committee

Members of the Closing the Achievement Gap Task Force Steering Committee are: Clark County Sheriff Ray Wingfield, Judy Harrison, Gurdon Mayor Clayton Franklin, Gay Neal, Gurdon High School Principal Leonard Gills and Gurdon Primary School Principal Rita Roe.

Public Relations

Members of the Public Relations Committee are: Jean Smithey, Shelia Butler, Beth Miller and Linda Dickerson.

Information Data

Members of the Information Data Committee are: Bonnie Ross, Kirby Sandridge, Cindie Escalante, Carolyn McClure, Melony Briscoe and Jennifer Nolan.

Webb Site

A fourth committee, technically a sub-committee for public relations, is the Webb Site Committee. Members are: Charles Failla, Lynn Failla and Cabe Middle School Principal Libby White.

Smithson told the crowd that teachers and administrators at school all know who the students who are at-risk of low grades are, and they have heard excuses. But what can be done about confusion and/or lack of interest merits studying.

Principal Libby White said, "Some of these students are bright and just dont care. You dont have to be low in intelligence to make low grades.

"Others just dont understand what school expects from them grade wise and dont believe they can understand. I hope we can find a way to get those grades up for the at-risk segment of our student population."

The committee adopted the philosophy Thursday that working together on a problem always produces more of the desired results.

The law that brought this task force to existence is one of the Acts of 2003, Arkansas Act 1777, effective July 16, 2003.

Smithson said one of the requirements of an upcoming state review of schools is that each district has been complying with such legislation.

"We should have been doing this task force awhile, but we are doing it now and we intend to keep trying to close the gap for those on the low achievement end," Smithson said.