Junction City School Board approves sports medicine program

JUNCTION CITY — The Junction City School Board approved the district administration’s request to establish a health science program with emphasis on sports medicine at its meeting Tuesday.

The program will act as a “career cluster” course for grades 10-12 and upon completion, students will receive a certification at graduation, superintendent Robby Lowe said. He recommended that the district hire its athletic trainer Charlie Wardlaw to a full-time teacher’s contract and spearhead the program.

Wardlaw would also receive an additional stipend for his work as the district’s trainer. Details of the stipend will be presented at the board’s meeting in June, he said.

“After examining what we’re paying per hour, how many hours we’re paying (for) and his not getting any benefits, for everybody involved it’ll probably be best if he’s on contract. Plus he can actually start this health science and sports medicine program,” Lowe said. “He’s certified to teach sports medicine as a career and technical (course).”

Junction City School Board members approved rehiring licensed staff, aside from those who’ve received non-renewal notices or opted to resign, for the upcoming school year. The board also approved the administration’s recommendation to hire Carmen Hajistathi as a high school resource teacher and Kelsey Jones as a K-1 teacher. Kindergarten teacher Dana Alexander’s resignation was approved as well.

High school principal Joy Mason is working to get all high school

students CPR training, she said. According to Ark. Code 6-16-143, students attending public high schools must be trained in CPR before graduation.

The law read, “The course shall not be a certification process but shall follow the standards established by the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, or another nationally recognized organization that uses current, evidence-based emergency cardiac care guidelines and incorporates psychomotor skill development in the instruction and the use of automated external defibrillators.”

“(Within) our April dates we do our CPR and it’s the CPR in families. It’s not the one where they get the CPR certificate, but it’s the knowledge that’ll help out family members in crisis. Ninth (grade training) will be on the 20th and 12th will be on the 24th,” Mason said. “What we’re trying to do is put it in the ninth grade, but we have to catch everybody before

we put it there.”

Students on both campuses are taking the ACT Aspire exam until April 25. Elementary school principal Teresa Matochik said that she gave teachers and students pep talks before the test.

“I asked (teachers) if they had been giving me … and our students the very best that they could and they said ‘Yes, ma’am. We have,” Matochik said. “I said, ‘Well, then it’s their turn … You’ve done your job and now let them perform. You don’t need to be all stressed out because when you’re stressed, they’ll feel it.”

Mason said that integrating the use of Chromebooks, or Google-powered laptops, into classroom instruction has helped put students’ at ease as they prepared for the ACT Aspire. End of Course (EOC) and Advanced Placement

testing will follow the standardized test.

The high school hosted “Science Super Saturday,” a fun-filled day designed to prepare seventh and eighth graders for the science portion of the test, she said.

“It was a success because the eighth graders knew what to expect this time. The seventh graders had been told and so it was a lot of fun. Ms. (Rebecca) Thurkill did a wonderful job,” Mason said. “Hopefully, we’ll see the benefits of doing something like that and helping the kids have some confidence.”

Next month, Lowe plans to make have recommendations for Arkansas School Boards Association policy updates, a bus purchase and partial pavement of the gym/football field parking lot. He said that the district is compiling a list of summer mainte- nance projects.

“One thing that we want to do is renovate the restrooms in 4-6 do some lighting, some painting and brighten the building up because I just think it’s needs to be brightened up. The auto flushing thing just keeps the restrooms so much cleaner,” he said.

The Junction City School Board’s next meeting is scheduled at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 9 in the Junction City Special Programs Building.