Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Changes Made In School's Handbooks

Handbooks for Gurdon's three schools will be changed somewhat for the 1998-99 school year.

Principals for the schools noted the most important changes for the Gurdon School Board at its regular meeting Tuesday, July 21.

There were few changes for the Gurdon Primary School handbook.

Again this year, students will have them in the form of a brightly decorated folder with the school calendar on the back.

The changes made were primarily in discipline. To be more consistent, when a student gets their name on the board, it will count as a first offense.

Students making a 96 percent in conduct all year long will be able to participate in a field trip at the end of the school year.

In addition, parents will be receiving letters from the GPS administration for students who are excessively tardy.

For the middle school, the main change concerned property damage. This will now result in the student being suspended.

Guidelines will be drafted on dropping students off and picking them up at the new Cabe Middle School.

And, there will be incentive discounts offered to students based on their performance.

Most of the changes for Gurdon High, according to Principal Leonard Gills, are cosmetic, and are basically changing the names of classes to the new "politically correct" names preferred by the Arkansas Department of Education.

The ADE, he said, is phasing out college and technical prep classes, instead going to integrated classes, primarily in math.

Now, Integrated Algebra will cover algebra, geometry and statistics in one year for freshman students.

Sophomores, in the advanced classes, will go on to Integrated Geometry.

And, Gills informed the board, new ADE regulations call for students graduating in 2002 through 2004 to have four math units in order to graduate and get into an Arkansas college.

Other name changes, Gills said, include College Prep classes now being called Common Core classes, while technical courses are now Career Focus.

The district will retain algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus classes which will not be integrated for the mainstream student body.

The business classes will see the introduction of desk top publishing I and II added, with home economics now being called Family and Consumer Services.

Agriculture classes also get name changes, with ag machinery become Agri Construction System and welding now being Agri Metals.

The big discussion came on the topic of exemption from mid-term and semester tests.

After a great deal of talk, the board agreed to eliminate all exemptions except for seniors during the second semester.

Gills presented information he had gathered from area districts on the topic to the board. He told them Hope had eliminated exemptions across the board, and Sparkman only allowed seniors to be exempt.

Delight, Prescott, Arkadelphia and Bismarck were all similar to Gurdon's former policy, which allowed students with "C" averages to be exempt from mid-term and semester tests if they had not been in trouble or missed too many days.

Most exemptions, he said, were geared toward absenteeism, but didn't address the issue of school supervised functions. This is a problem the district has had with trips, sports and agri students during fair time.

Other schools, Gills said, excuse students for the day their animal(s) is to be shown. Activities, he added, shouldn't be abused for students getting out of school.

He also discussed the discipline policy, saying changes have been made for students suspended for 10 days or less. In the past, if a student was suspended for 10 days, the school board was called to hear the issue. However, under the new guidelines, the case can be heard by the superintendent without the board being convened.

But, he said, for suspensions of more than 10 days, the board does have to meet and address the problem.

The fighting policy was pretty much left alone, with students being suspended or sent to ISS for three days on their first offense. Hope, Gills said, reworked their policy on fighting because of the problems the district had. There, a first offense nets five days suspension, with this doubled for the second offense, or the student involved could finish the year in alternative school.

Hope, Gills said, also addressed the issue of group fighting, or fights involving more than two combatants.

He said Gurdon's policy should be left alone, at three days suspension for the first offense, five days for the second and expulsion for the third.

Gurdon will also have a dress code for the coming year. Students will not be allowed to wear tank tops. Girls can't wear halter tops or see through shirts. Nor can they wear shirts showing a bare midriff or navel.

Dresses and skirts, he said, should be of moderate length, and the rules on shorts be more strict as well.

The board agreed and left the fighting policy alone, instituted a no exemption policy except for second semester seniors with A's and B's and agreed with the dress code.