Jasper district delivers report to public

The Jasper School District delivered its annual report to the public at the start of the regular board of education meeting held Monday night, Dec. 16, at the Jasper School Library.
Superintendent Dr. Candra Brasel presented the district's information. She was followed by each school principal who gave a synopsis of the recent data received from the Arkansas Teaching, Learning & Assessment System (ATLAS). It provides information about Arkansas student mastery of college and career readiness.
Focusing on students grades 3 – 10, the ATLAS assessment program consists of interim assessments and end-of-year summative assessments. These adaptive tests assess students’ understanding and mastery of grade-level standards in English language arts (ELA), mathematics and science.
In the overview, Brasel said the school district's overall goal is continuing to increase students' achievements in the summative assessments mentioned above.
The school district's enrollment is 807 students. A break down shows: Jasper Elementary, 248 students; Jasper High School, 200 students; Kingston Elementary, 103 students; Kingston High School, 91 students; Oark Elementary, 88 student and Oark High School, 77 students.
School board members' training hours as required by the state education department were reported. Later in the meeting Board Member Lisa Snow was recognized as having received Master Board Member certification having logged 23 hours of training.
Last year's achievements were reviewed. Over a dozen bullet points were listed that included grants received by the district, family engagement activities, improved teacher salaries and new services such as adding a school resource officer at Oark. Schools are participating in the Farm to School food project and all students eat free.
Brasel ended her portion of the presentation by showing charts and graphs of students' performance in the most recent ATLAS summative scores in ELA, math and science. She noted the scores were from tests taken last spring. Since then, the school district has begun implementing new curriculums geared more to meeting state standards and engaging professional academic coaches to provide guidance to the school district's teaching staff to get the most out of the new tools, or HQIM (High Quality Instructional Materials), teachers are being provided.
Most grade levels report students' scores are near or above state average scores, depending on the subject of study, Brasel turned the balance of the report to the individual schools' principals who gave academic reports by building.
Jasper High School Principal Todd Parker gave detailed information on the school's staffing and student makeup. He even broke data down to illustrate student attendance and discipline.

He also talked about the various interventions used to help struggeling students.
Parker said the schools are producing much more data for analysis. This has led to a more school-wide intervention plan, offering learning assistance for math and literacy and forming teams of teachers to discuss math and literacy on a scheduled basis. Parker said he and staff members make walkthrough visits into classrooms to generate input and feedback on what goes on there. He noted the school has implemented growth recognition programs rewarding both staff and students for good performance.
Jasper Elementary Principal Courtney Farmer said science and ELA are the school's focus areas. To encourage reading the 5-6 graders are participating in Battle of the Books and have assigned reading ambassadors who visit and read to nursing home residents.
Seth Villines, Kingston School principal, also talked about intervention to "plug the holes in the boat." Special efforts are made to help prepare students for ACT testing. This may require the student getting assistance off campus.
He noted the high school is currently ranked second overall public high school in Arkansas out of 305.
Oark High School Principal Tina South said she is meeting with a leadership coach and undergoing mentoring from the assistant superintendent to improve her leadership skills. Teachers are also working to help students work on their social, emotional and life skills. "We have found a lot of our students are struggling mentally and lacking confident and they are bringing that into the classroom."
Oark Elementary Principal Jeremy Pitts said the school has a state assigned literacy coach on campus three days a week. The focus is on grades K-2.
There are 13 interventionists (nine certified and four classified). They follow the STING philosophy. "Striving Toward Improvement and Never Giving up."
Teachers and parents meet weekly and work well together, he said. Oark is family, he noted. Older students think nothing of helping younger students work on their skills.
He said 14 teachers had classroom procedures and routines in place. This leads to less discipline referrals. "When the classroom is working like it's supposed to kids are not goofing off and getting into trouble in the classroom." Recognition is given to those students who are doing what they are supposed to be doing. "They have more respect for their teachers."