Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Emmet Schools Accredited

Emmet's elementary and high schools are now fully accredited.

Dr. Gene Ross, superintendent of the Emmet School District, informed the Emmet School Board of this at the regular monthly meeting of the board Monday, July 6.

He said the panel studying the schools had no comment about the elementary school, but the high school was cited because some teachers are not fully certified. However, they are working towards their certification.

The district is looking into creating an incentive program for those teachers who don't use all of their sick days or professional days.

Dr. Ross said Hope gives the teachers $240 for not using their sick days, and an additional $80 at the end of the year for not taking their professional days. If a teacher uses any of their days, they don't get paid at the end of the school year.

When teachers accumulate 90 days of sick leave, they can take three days off during the school year without being penalized.

After 10 or more years, should a teacher at Hope retire, they are paid $40 for each day of accumulated sick leave not used up to 90 days.

Emmet, Ross said, has three teachers with 90 sick days accumulated.

Board member Jon Saladin asked this issue be tabled until the August meeting so the board could draw up some type of plan for the teachers and figure out what to do.

Whatever the board decides, Ross said, will have to go to the Personnel Policy Committee (PPC) for approval or changes, then be brought back to the board. Once these changes are made by the board, the decision again goes before the PPC and then, if approved, before the teachers for a vote.

The board agreed it would be unfair to punish teachers for missing a day or two when they are truly ill and shouldn't be at school.

Though it's summer, there still has been plenty of activity at the Emmet school. This year's summer school theme has been water, with the elementary students doing art projects in different mediums and using a variety of artistic styles. Reports were also written on the topic.

Three children have moved into the district for the summer program, and all showed progress. One of these students came from Germany, another from out of state and the third from a nearby district.

Children in the ABC program visited the Indian mounds at Mufreesboro this summer as one of their field trips. They dug for arrowheads while there.

High School Principal Frank Henson told the board the school recently went through the COE process, getting ideas on how to improve the school.

The COE team, he said, looked at the plans Emmet had for improvement and made recommendations.

Those recommendations included giving the teaching staff more development time; improving test scores; changing the primary person responsible to be more efficient; reviewing the sub-population groups for various factors; encouraging parental involvement in school activities; and expanding extracurricular activities.

Emmet will be offering night classes on computer literacy. The classes will have 12-15 adults involved per session, with the first to be accepted those with students in the school system. The Arkansas Department of Vocational-Education is picking up the tab for salaries for these classes.

Ross said the district received a grant for $55,000 for a lap-top computer and LCD projector.

He said the daycare program would have been successful if all parents had paid their bills. Overall, the district lost about $179 because of those not paying. However, those who paid contributed $3,080, with most of the expenses for the program being for aides.

The district will examine getting a new security system installed. The system will monitor six rooms in three buildings, including the gym and library. In addition, the system can be expanded to add six more cameras.

The board decided to seek other bids, it only had one, and go with a color system instead of black and white. This is because black and white can be grainy and important details can be lost or missed.

The board also approved a series of bids for the coming school year. Coleman Dairy had the lowest bid for milk, while Flowers was the only bidder for bread. A&B Carpet had the low bid for carpet cleaning, while Hope Fire Extinguisher was given the fire extinguisher bid.

The panel's final order of business was to approve the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 budgets.