Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

School gets nod from state review

The Gurdon School District fared well during a recent site visit by the Arkansas Department of Education, and now the district is awaiting a letter which will reveal the current accreditation status.

Bonnie Ross, curriculum coordinator for the district, said the site visit, which occurred on Feb. 1, checks 146 different things were responsible for as a district, and during the Gurdon School Boards February meeting, she said the visitors from the department of education were overall pleased with Gurdon schools.

A few minor areas of non-compliance were found, but Ross said the district was not written up for any of the infractions. She said they mainly consisted of items which were suppose to be included in the student handbook but were not. An addendum was created for each affected handbook and distributed to parents during parent-teacher conferences.

Ross said the policies which were not in the handbooks were already being followed by the district, they had just been omitted from the books.

Although the on site visit went well, the district is not completely in the clear, Ross said, until a letter to that effect is received from the Department of Education. She said there is a more in depth study done by the department through the states computer network in which all of the districts courses and teachers are listed.

Ross said this study is done to determine whether or not the district is teaching all of the required classes and has certified teachers teaching them.

The district was placed on accreditation probation in previous years after it was found that not enough science classes were being offered at Gurdon High School and that one of the science teachers were not certified to fill the position.

Ross said that although there is no way to predict exactly what the state department will say this year, she does not expect them to find any problems with the Gurdon School District which would cause the school to remain on accreditation probation.

As far as we know, we have the required classes and the student-teacher ratio is ok, she said. We dont foresee anything on there.

The Gurdon School Board had to take action in January to discontinue the districts cosmetology program in an effort to comply with state standards. Because a certified instructor was not available for that course, it could have caused a citation from the state. However, since the district took care of that before Jan. 31, she said it should not play a role in the accreditation process this year.

Gurdon Superintendent Bobby Smithson praised Ross and other staff members during the February school board meeting for their efforts in keeping the school off of accreditation probation this year.

We are now officially off accreditation probation, he said. This is great news.