Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

New Superintendent Wants To Improve District

Prescott's new superintendent, Ron Wright, has plans to improve the school district.

First off, he wants to address the flat roofs on the district's school buildings, getting them pitched to avoid leakage problems.

Each summer, he said of the flat roofs, they must be patched, but still tend to leak. This is because water gathers on a flat surface and can erode into the structure.

The worst area, Wright said, is at the Prescott Elementary School. Once a pitched roof is in place at PES, he said, the middle school will be next on the list.

The benefits should be long-lasting, he said, as pitched roofs can last 20 years.

In addition to putting new roofs on the school buildings, Wright wants to improve the Curley Wolf football field bleachers.

The idea, he said, it to remove the current wood from the bleachers, paint the metal frame and get new lumber from Funshine Furniture to put back in place.

The wood from Funshine, he said, is treated southern pine, and will be guaranteed to last 50 years, which would be a savings to the district. The lumber from Funshine, Wright added, would be grooved to help prevent warping, as occurs to standard wood, and constructed in a manner so they would be easier to replace if something did happen to a piece of the wood.

Construction isn't Wright's only area of interest for the district. He also plans to use distance learning classes to enhance the curriculum. The first classes would most likely be calculus and Spanish.

These classes would be held at PES, he said, and offer tremendous potential for students and adults in the area. In fact, Wright said, he would like to see adult education classes added to help the community as well.

The computer cables are being improved at Prescott High School, he said, with work planned to get the outlying buildings on campus hooked up to the computer network and on the Internet.

"This is the information age," Wright said, "and we need to expose the students to new technology."

Along with the work on the computer side, Wright said the vocational aspects aren't being forgotten either. In fact, he would like for the district to partner with area industries so the district can learn what industry needs are and plan the curriculums accordingly for those students who don't attend college.

"We'll be talking with business and industry to see what they need in workers," he said. "We're seeking a partnership with them. We've been losing students and can't provide the proper financing for schools this way and need to go another direction. By becoming partners with business and industry, everyone will do well."

Wright comes to Prescott from the Arkansas Department of Education, where he's been the past four years. He was also principal at Bismarck for four years, and worked as assistant principal in his hometown of Mena.

Wright began his teaching as a substitute so he could teach around his church work schedule. He did much of his substitute teaching in Bryant before returning to Ouachita Baptist University for his Bachelor's degree. He earned a masters from the University of Central Arkansas.

He said all teachers should be required to substitute teach before going into the profession on a full-time basis. This, Wright said, will give them an idea of what they'll be facing as teachers as students will try to pull every trick in the book on a substitute. It will also help those considering a teaching career make up their minds.

Wright and his wife, Connie, have three children, Rachel, 19, Nathan, 17, and Jesse, 15. Nathan is staying at Bismarck for his senior year to finish his career with the Lions as their point guard on the basketball team.

Jesse has been considering becoming a Curley Wolf football player. He has played at Bismarck the past few years.

Wright's interests include being with his family and doing family-oriented things, studying Native American history, collecting arrowheads, hunting and fishing.

Connie is also in the education profession as a media specialist for the Hope Elementary School.