Week 31: Showing Appreciation

Happy Friday!

This has been a very busy week for all of us with a lot of good news and results in all that has happened. Thank you for all of the progress you have made toward our district goals! I was happy to report to the School Board on Tuesday that 73 percent of our students are ‘on-level’ according to our methods of determination. This is a great testament to the work being done in all of the buildings and we should be proud of that feat. Yet, we still have work to do for those students who are not ‘on-level’ and we should always strive as educators to reach 100 percent of our kids!

The testing window for the ACT Aspire is open now and our students will all be done testing soon but we will not know if we actually hit our goal where the ACT Aspire is concerned until this summer. I will continue to emphasize that while that reading level from the ACT Aspire has an impact on our schools’ report cards, it is not as thorough as our methods of assessment, not completely aligned with our power standards, based on one day in a student’s life, and based on a score of 22 on the ACT by the 11th grade. I look forward to the coming years as Arkansas determines its own definition of grade-level reading and we have assessments aligned to our current standards.

As far as our other two goals are concerned, not a lot has changed. Our attendance did improve by one-tenth of a percent and our discipline is remaining on the same positive trajectory at 15 percent less than last year. I attribute our attendance improvement to the work done at Louise Durham. For the first time in months, their absenteeism has dropped below eight percent.

Recognition of Value

All of the good things mentioned above and in every weekly Wrap-up happen because of the people working in our schools. Not just here in Mena but all over the state. And even though there were disappointments in how LEARNS changed teacher pay, it is clear that leaders in our school district and state see the importance of educators and support staff and it has been shown over the last two years.

I looked at last year’s Wrap-up for this week and it included information about a coming raise in pay for all staff members. Fortunately, we are able to do it again, and this time with more funding and higher amounts than last year.

Girls of Promise

This was one of the meaningful events I failed to mention in last week’s Wrap-up. Mrs. Billings took four Mena Middle School girls to this conference on April 7th. This is an initiative of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, that exposes girls to opportunities and mentors in STEAM fields. The initiative’s goal is to increase the number of girls in higher-level STEAM courses and careers to put them on the path to achieving economic security as women. The annual Girls of Promise Conference is open to 8th-grade girls who are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math in Arkansas! Students learned about various STEAM careers, enhanced their skills, and met women mentors excelling in their fields. This was a good initial action as the Middle School prepares for a new Project Lead The Way program.

DeQueen-Mena Educational Service Cooperative

Both licensed and non-licensed employees who use the coop are asked each year to complete a user satisfaction survey. The DeQueen-Mena Educational Service Cooperative serves us and other schools in our area in so many ways that it is difficult to describe from one educator’s perspective what they do; so, they seek multiple perspectives to know how to improve. The coop plans and makes improvements based on your experiences with them and they do this using a user satisfaction survey. Please take some time to complete this survey. I know we pick and choose what surveys to respond to because there are so many put in front of us these days; but, the coop is a service that we need to make good use of and they need to know how we feel about their performance as an organization. I have filled out this survey and I would appreciate it if you would too.

Closing

Last week the Arkansas Rural Education Association announced scholarship recipients and one of our paraprofessionals was chosen! Congratulations to Stacy Green for winning the Paraprofessional Scholarship and for representing our district so well!

Congratulations to our softball team for winning the conference championship with no conference losses! Both baseball and softball will be competing in the conference tournament next week and all of our support is behind them.

I want to thank Amy Bartow for managing our Fresh Fruits and Vegetables grant. This week was a special treat because there was enough extra money at Holly Harshman to provide large fruit trays to the students there. It was a nice treat for those kids.

It was a really good week at Mena Public Schools!!

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a great weekend!!