FARMINGTON -- Farmington School District will change the configuration of some of its buildings next year with the retirement of two school principals.
Bryan Law, superintendent of schools, gave an update on the proposed changes to the School Board last week. The next step, Law said, is to tell staff about it and then begin to work out the details.
Bob Echols, principal of the Freshman Academy, and Terry Lakey, Lynch Middle School principal, have submitted their resignations, and the School Board has accepted each one. Echols' resignation was approved in January and Lakey's was approved by the board last week.
The new grade configurations will be effective with the 2018-19 school year.
The district will move fourth and fifth grades from Ledbetter Intermediate to Lynch Middle School, so that Lynch will have fourth-sixth grades in that building. The former high school will house seventh, eighth and ninth grades and transition into a junior high facility.
Ledbetter will be used for classes through Northwest Technical Institute (which is now at the former high school) and the district's technology department also will move to Ledbetter.
NorthWest Arkansas Community College will continue to have classes in the J building at the high school.
Law said the district's administrative team has met many times over the past five weeks to decide how to meet student growth taking place now and what is expected for the future.
The team came up with two major points, Law said.
One is that the district should limit transitions as students move from one school building to another. The other is that all facilities on campus need to be as nice as the elementary schools, middle school and new high school.
"Rather than just tweak a few things at Ledbetter, we need to completely redo that building," Law said, noting there are safety concerns at the school and it has many other problems that need to be addressed.
The goal, Law said, is that one day Ledbetter will be a third elementary school in the district.
Law said some of these building changes had already been discussed but with the retirement of Echols and Lakey, administrators felt now rather than later would be a good time to go ahead and change grade configurations.
Julia Williams, Ledbetter principal, said the school has gone from 318 students eight years ago to 412 students today.
"I love Ledbetter," Williams said, but she noted it is not sufficient for the student population.
It takes an hour for classes to go to the bathrooms following lunch and recess each day.
"That's a loss of instruction time," Williams said.
The school has four lunch periods and four recesses each day.
"We've done a lot to make it work. We're at capacity. Other than space, there are other reasons that could make this (change) beneficial," she added.
The larger school districts have middle schools with fifth and sixth grades together and this allows them to align the curriculum for the grades. With fourth-sixth grades together, the school will be able to provide more opportunities for students, Williams said.
"To continue to grow opportunities for our kids, I think is the main thing," Williams said.
Lakey said the middle school is out of classroom space. The school has a record high 590 students, Lakey said.
"If the housing boom is real, we can be proactive or reactive," Lakey told board members. "I've no idea where you will put them. If we don't reconfigure before the rush comes, we'll be doing it afterward."
Schedules are difficult at the middle school because seventh and eighth grades are required to have electives that are not required by sixth-graders. The school has a master schedule for sixth grade and another one for seventh and eighth grades.
Kara Gardenhire, Williams Elementary principal, said studies show students do better when they have fewer transitions from one school to another. The new grade configurations would reduce transitions in the Farmington School District, Gardenhire said.
Law said his intent is to be as transparent as possible about the changes.
"I think we're headed in the right direction," he said, encouraging school board members and those at the meeting to email him if they had questions or concerns.
He said as details are worked out on the changes, more information will be made available.
Law said the district was waiting to advertise new administrative openings after grade configurations had been finalized. The Lynch principal will have to have a middle school endorsement since sixth grade will be on that campus. Because of student enrollment, Lynch and the junior high school will be required to have both a principal and assistant principal on site.
General News on 03/07/2018