Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Report Card Studied

Prescott School board members reviewed the annual report card from the Arkansas Department of Education at its regular meeting last Tuesday, June 18.

The report card, which was first issued in 1990, uses 16 indicators in its ranking and is for the 1995 school year using data supplied by the district.

Each indicator was used in a multiple regression with each of the five demographic categories: Average daily membership (ADM), resource rate, education level; income level and free and reduced lunch rate. These totals on each performance indicator was compared to the average calculated by the multiple regression.

In addition to the report card for the district, the state averages were also given. There are more than 300 schools in the state.

Prescott School district is composed of 282 miles and ranks 39th overall among other districts in the state. There are currently 87.8 certified employees in the district which is ranked 86th.

Pupil to teacher ratio in Prescott is 13.4 teachers for every pupil which ranks the district 206.

The district spent an average of $3,115 per student which ranks 168th among its peers.

Average teacher salary is "average" according the ranking. District's teacher average salary is $26,629.

Of the district's seniors, 61% took the ACT test, about average with similar districts averaging 54.6%.

School board, superintendent and principal's expense per ADM was $411 up from $367 last year and over the average $379.

Prescott spent $95 per ADM for athletics which ranked below average from similar districts $72.

Board members heard an update on the district's April 1 fire.

Superintendent Don Johnston told the board more than $324,000 in checks have been received from the insurance company.

$142,000 - for the first billing - has been paid to Service Master, the company responsible for cleaning up after the fire.

Johnston said the district had received bids of $35,191 above the insurance companies replacement costs allowed.

Some replacement items are upgrades from what was lost.

Another consideration from the fire will be mandated upgrades on portions of the school in the rebuilding. Some deal with laws concerning those with disabilities.

$113,000 has been approved and owed to the district, but at the time of the meeting had not been received.