Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Schools To Get At-Risk Program

A new program for at-risk students will be implemented in the Gurdon School District next year.

During its regular monthly meeting, Tuesday, May 20, the Gurdon School Board heard from Burks Williams, the director of the At Risk Student Program in Hot Springs.

Williams, who is with the Community Counseling Services (CCS), said Gurdon is an underdeveloped area for at-risk students. He said 36 students have been identified as being at-risk in the Gurdon area.

This program, he said, was installed in the Arkadelphia system with good results. In Arkadelphia, two additional people were hired through CCS to work with students having problems.

According to Williams, these staffers work to blend in with the other school employees and work within a school's guidelines. Their primary duties are to work with students prone to getting in trouble, which leads to suspensions and being expelled.

"Our goal," he said, "is to work with them to the point to help them with their inappropriate behavior."

The idea is to keep these students in school and off the streets. Williams said this program has worked in the Arkadelphia and Hot Springs systems.

It has been approved for Lake Hamilton schools next year, and Williams said, the CCS has been working with the Malvern system.

The best part of the program, he informed the board, is it will cost the Gurdon School District nothing but some office space. Williams said the CCS uses existing resources for funding without taking money from schools.

Bobby Smithson, Gurdon superintendent, said the program will need office space for two people, and the district has room available in the Arkla Gas building it rents for the ALE program.

"This is a win-win situation for us," he said, recommending the board give its stamp of approval for the program.

Williams told the panel the program uses only licensed counselors and social workers. Psychiatrists will be brought in when needed.

He said these counselors will be on hand five days a week with set office hours.

Students, though, aren't the only ones who can be helped by the counselors. Williams said when the March 1 storms hit Arkadelphia, staffers with CCS worked with families and children to help them overcome the stress and pain of their losses.

In schools, he said, the counselors work with students, teachers and principals on consultations. "We can't work with children alone," he said. "We must work with the family."

The board agreed to implement the program at the start of the 1997-98 school year. This will give CCS officials time to interview applicants, do the hiring necessary and introduce them to the Gurdon school staff.

Last month, the board discussed selling timber on 2.5 acres of land donated to the school. The idea was to use the funds from the cut trees to bail out the FFA from its deficit

But, the board wasn't familiar with the timber on the land and had Jesse Runyan, a member of the board, look at it to see what the trees would be worth. He was also charged with seeing if cutting the timber was a good idea.

Runyan met with Stacy Stone, the FFA instructor, to examine the property and trees. Runyan had drawn a plat from the deed and checked the boundary lines of the property off 10th Street near the cemetery.

He said there wasn't much monetary value in the trees on the land, he described as being mostly a gum thicket with a few pines.

He suggested, with the board agreeing, the FFA can cut and sell the timber, but the organization must develop a plan to utilize the land once it's been cleared.

Mark McBride, with Stephens, Inc. brought a bond resolution for the board's approval. He said the resolution must be passed in order to sell bonds for the construction of a new Gurdon Middle School.

However, the bonds had already been sold to Stern, Agee and Leech of Montgomery, Ala., the high bidders on the bond issue. Stern, Agee and Leech submitted a bid of $681,600 for the bonds.

The district, he said, got a good interest rate on the bonds at about 5.20 percent.

The board passed the resolution.

McBride was followed by Wayne Trull, the architect for the new GMS.

Smithson said he hopes the new facility can be built for $40 per square foot, as the district has asked the plans be held to 25,000 square feet.

In order to stay within the spatial requirements, he said, there will be no room designated specifically for the gifted and talented program. There will also be no choir room or shop at the new GMS.

The biggest problem, he said, will be in feeding the students at the GHS cafeteria. Smithson said the school may have to have three lunch periods at 20 minutes each to make sure all students are fed.

Trull said there were a lot of limitations because of the space situation.

The main entry, he said, will be on the south side of the building where buses will come in. This is also where a small faculty parking lot will be. This lot will have space for 50 or 60 vehicles, and could be expanded in the future.

The building, he said, will be the same basic design as GHS and will blend in visually with the high school structure.

It will run in an east-west direction with a central corridor. Grades five and six will be housed in one portion, with grades seven and eight in the other.

Trull said there will be five exits from the building, two going to the buses, two for the cafeteria and one to the parking lot.

The students will have a covered walkway as they go to the cafeteria, he said.

While rooms for the GT and choir were not listed on the plans shown Tuesday night, Trull said they could be listed as alternates on the bid forms for the contractors. Because of the building's design, he informed the board, these rooms could be added on later.

"It's not easy keeping in the 25,000 square feet requirements," he said. "The room sizes are dictated by the state.

According to Trull, the science lab will be about 1,200 square feet and can make use of equipment at the current GMS.

He suggested the district act as its own contractor to save the 10 to 15 percent general contractors normally get as their fee. The district, he said, can do its own subcontracting.

Smithson pointed out the district hasn't exhausted its options on the revolving loan program, and could look here for funds for the other two classrooms -- depending on their cost.

He said there will be room for 20 percent student body growth, as the district is at 80 percent capacity now.

Stan Escalante, a member of the board, voiced opposition saying he didn't like the idea of mixing age groups and genders in physical education classes. He also didn't like the idea of there being no space set aside for the choir classes.

Billy Tarpley, also on the board, said the district has come this far and needs to continue going forward with the project. Changes, he said, co