Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Nevada Board Hears About School's First Day

Day one went well for the Nevada School District.

There were no major problems in any area, the principals and transportation director told the Nevada School Board Thursday, Aug. 19.

Natalie Sherwood, principal at Nevada Elementary, said everything went smoothly, while the open house also went well.

The majority of parents showed up and got involved, she said.

In addition, the school's after school care program has begun.

Blake Epperson, Nevada High principal, agreed saying all went well with one little exception.

Apparently, the bells didn't go off as expected and when he called all students over the intercom, he didn't realize changes had been made to it and ended up broadcasting school- wide.

However, this glitch was quickly corrected and the rest of the day went off without a hitch.

Nevada Superintendent Rick McAffee said the new public address system is digital and was apparently set wrong for the bells.

During the in-service session with teachers the five-year plan was brought up.

According to McAffee, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) wants the five-year plan to be streamlined.

Special goals, he said, will be selected on the basis of the needs of the students. Education is the top priority now.

The COE committees will be put on the job to help streamline the plan and get a new one in place.

McAffee said prior plans were primarily written by administrators, approved and put aside.

The new idea, though, is to get teachers, businesses and student relatives involved in making the plans so there will be more community involvement.

This will also allow the district to find out what each venue sees as the most important needs and gear the educational curriculum accordingly.

Some areas where the need is greatest need are language arts, math and science.

"I hope this plan will be a living document," McAffee told the board.

This will be the third time Nevada has been through a five-year plan, as it was one of the pilot schools for the program.

For the new plan, McAffee said, surveys will be prepared for teachers, parents, students, businesses and the community.

Board member Don Callicott said fundamental education doesn't change, nor does math and reading skills. "There's no need to change programs so often."

Sherwood said a blended approach to reading is used at NES, making sure the children learn the words phonetically. This has been proven, she told the board, and works.

While there has been opposition to the Smart Start Program, McAffee said, the overall initiative is for good teachers to keep doing what they've always done teach.

The idea, he said, is to go back to the pure basics of education. Teachers have copies of the curriculum framework on skills to be taught at each grade, but the teaching must be consistent and intentional to be effective.

This is the goal under the new COE plan, he continued, as there are many factors involved in both learning and teaching.

Trial run balances were put in the budget to see how the numbers checked out for the coming year.

McAffee said the district will be getting just under $3 million for the 1999-2000 school year, and the "trial" numbers were close.

The final budget will be prepared soon, and, McAffee said, is conservative. "We work on saving money wherever we can."

The new salary schedule will cost the district an additional $189,000. This was on top of $100,000 having to be cut from an already streamlined budget, he said.

No action was taken during a brief executive session.

However, the board did vote to hire Phyllis Burns, with the contract being contingent on her getting her Arkansas certification and passing a background check. Burns is a recent graduate of Louisiana Tech.

Bids for upgrading 17 computers with 450 megahertz Pentium III chips were opened, with the low bid going to ECR at $19,950.

Meal prices were discussed, with breakfast to cost $1, student lunches being $1 and adult lunches costing $2.