KINGSTON — In Arkansas, families and communities are expected to be involved in the education of their children.
Each school district is required to establish in their system a Family & Community Engagement Plan and seat dedicated committees at each of its buildings. The purpose of engagement plans is to assist the district achieve and maintain a high level of family involvement and positive family attitudes toward education.
According to the Jasper School District's policies, "The school district has developed a parental involvement plan at both the district level and school level, as prescribed by Arkansas law and the rules of the Arkansas Department of Education, but most importantly, because we want to create a caring partnership to support our students. These plans, which are reviewed annually, reflect the district's commitment to building parental involvement through the following components: communicating about school programs and student progress, recruiting family volunteers, involving families with learning activities at home, including families in school-decision-making, assisting families with parenting skills, and collaborating with the community to coordinate resources and services."
The school board approved the 2023-2024 plan last April. As stated in the plan, the district's goals will include, but not be limited to: Each campus will...
• Develop and implement both a literacy plan and an improvement plan
• Implement a Responsive to Intervention (RTI) Program for student intervention
• Utilize the Professional Learning Community (PLC)professional Process (weekly preferred, minimum is every 2 weeks)
• Collect and analyze student achievement data
• Identify the professional development (PD) necessary to improve teaching and/or interventions
• Seek to improve stakeholder engagement as much as possible
• Establish challenging, yet attainable goals based on student data
• Follow a continuous cycle of inquiry regarding data and interventions
• Provide high-quality professional development for teachers and staff to address
student learning loss and educational gaps
During the September meeting of the Jasper School District Board of Education, Assistant Superintendent Kim Liggett, presented in her monthly academic report some information about the involvement plans at each of the schools in the district and listed the scheduled events this school year designed to improve stakeholder engagement.
Jasper School committee members are Dwayne Barnard, counselor; Courtney Farmer, (principal), Sarah Cornelius, teacher; Holly Watts, teacher, Kim Adams, parent and Kristen Sams, parent.
Events already held this year were the annual open house, Read-A-Thon, Grandparents Day and the monthly awards assembly for September.
Upcoming events include: Oct. 13, Fall Festival; Oct. 27, monthly awards assembly; Oct. 31, Halloween costume contest; Nov. 16, K-2 Literacy Night; Nov. 30, monthly awards assembly; Dec. 15, Christmas program; Jan 26, monthly awards assembly; Feb 23, monthly assembly; April 26, monthly assembly and May 17, end of the year awards celebration.
Jasper High School events include Family Night in the spring along with transition night for incoming 7th graders and the senior year end assembly.
Oark Schools: Committee members: Stephanie Anderson, elementary; Kurstein Keck, high school; Tina South, Jeremy Pitts, Lisa Snow, Laura Zalar, Rhea Morris, parents; Rachel Turner, parent/preschool; Sarah Clark, alumni/teacher; Angelia Kitchen, nurse; Misty Keith, parent/PTO; Nick South, Lonnie Haggard and Tabitha Turner, parents.
Upcoming events are: Oct, 14, Oark Family Fest; November, literacy night; Dec. 15, Christmas recital; Christmas Family Night; February, Family STEM night; March, talent show; May, student music and art showcase and May 20, Family Fun Day.
Kingston School committee members are Linda Clark, elementary; Laura Huber, elementary/parent; Lacie Bohannan, K-12/parent; Sarah Villines, high school/parent; CeCe Capps, high school; Joei Phillips, K-12/parent; Carrie Pittman, parent and Becca Robinson, parent.
Upcoming events Oct. 6, Holiday Hearts, Nov. 10, Thanksgiving lunch; Nov. 13-17, book fair; December, Christmas Extravaganza; March, Family Literacy Night; May Academic Fair; May, field day; Financial aid Night for Seniors and Parents, October and January. There will slo be monthly PTSO meetings, two parent teacher conferences, and a high school CAP night to update student success plans.
"Lots of great activities," Liggett said, adding she was sure the schools will be including more as the school year progresses.
She also informed the board that beginning of the school assessments are being completed. She said monitoring of kindergarteners is being prioritized. She said kindergartners are currently being taught to recognize and name the letters of the alphabet. Students are not fluent if they are not naming 46 letters a minute. The goal is to have them naming 55 letters per minute by November, she said. From there students will begin reading words and then sentences in preparation to succeed when they enter first grade
