Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

GHS cosmetology program cancelled for one semester

Students at Gurdon High School will not have the opportunity to enroll in classes at Arkadelphia Beauty College this semester due to accreditation issues.

Bonnie Ross, curriculum coordinator for Gurdon School District, gave a report on the cosmetology program to the Gurdon School Board during its meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 11. She said district officials thought all of the necessary paperwork was in place to recieve a required one year provisional license for Beth Waggoner, instructor at Arkadelphia Beauty College, but recent developments have caused the license to be delayed.

Ross said there is a set process the district followed to obtain the proper accreditation for the program. To begin the process, the district submitted a start-up grant to Arkansas Workforce Education. The course then had to gain approval from the Arkansas Department of Education before Waggoner's license could be applied for.

Applying for Waggoner's license includes a background check, receiving a one year provisional lisence and Waggoner's taking and passing the Praxis 1 exam during the one year provisional time.

Ross said the problem was simple. The district has doccumentation that all of the paperwork for Waggoner's background checks were submitted to the Arkansas Department of Education on May 16, but it was later discovered that district checks were not enclosed with the background check paperwork.

Ross said that under ADE guidelines, the paperwork should have been returned to the district when it arrived without the check.

"No one at ADE seemed to nkow where it was," she said.

The district re-submitted the paperwork on Jan. 10, but it takes four to six months for the federal background check to be completed, Ross said. The deadline to have all accreditation issued corredted is Jan. 30.

Ross said that since Gurdon High School is already on year two academic probation, it cannot afford for another accredation problem to be found this year. An on-site visit from the Arkansas Department of Education is planned for Feb. 1. It is during this visit that all accreditation issues will be checked by the state.

"We can't afford to go back up there," Supt. Bobby Smithson said of district officials having to appear before the Arkansas Board of Education in Little Rock earlier this year to answer for accreditation problems found last year. "They're just regulating us to death."

"We have to be safe and not sorry," Ross said.

District officials hope to have all of the acreditation issues worked out for the cosmetology program by the Fall 2007 semester so that the program can resume.