Strong-Huttig School District to apply for small district waiver

STRONG — The Strong-Huttig School Board gave the district’s administration permission to apply for the Minimum School District Waiver at its meeting Monday.

The waiver would allow the district to operate through the 2018-2019 school year. Under Arkansas code, a school district educating less than 350 students is eligible for a waiver as long as it’s not in academic, financial or facilities distress; or on probation due to a Standards for Accreditation of Arkansas Public Schools and School Districts violation. “(Arkansas Department of Education general counsel) Ms. (Lori) Freno called today and the letters (stating) that we’re below 350 will be coming out at the end of this week. She asked that I already have this on the board minutes. I said that I did and after tonight I can start putting the rest of the paperwork together,” district Superintendent Jeff Alphin said.

In an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report, Alphin said that closing the district and sending students to schools in El Dorado,

Crossett and Hermitage would add 30 minutes to their daily commute. The State Board of Education approved Alphin’s waiver application last year after it ruled that the district operated in compliance.

Board members also approved a resolution to change how this year’s election will be conducted. Under the resolution, votes would be tallied from absentee votes and early voting only, eliminating the need for a polling place on election day.

Terri Dollar, who represents Zone 1, is the only board member up for re-election. The resolution will be revisited every year, administrative assistant Vera Herrin said.

“We’ll still have to pay for ballots and stuff like that, but we won’t have to pay for a polling site, workers and that kind of stuff,” she said.

As of Monday, Dollar is running unopposed, Alphin said.

“She’ll just have to vote for herself … Everything will done at the courthouse,” he said.

The school board approved the district’s ADE-mandated wellness policy and several changes to the student handbook including an updated calendar as well as personnel and committee lists. Alphin also presented a recommendation from the athletic coaches that would require athletes to receive a full day of instruction the day of a game.

“We were going with a half-day, which is what the triple-A (Arkansas Activities Association) requires and you can go above,” he said. “You just can’t go below and coaches said that they would like to go above because we had some vocational students that wanted to check out at lunch on game days. With that time out, they were missing instruction and they didn’t want to do that.”

Procedures adhering to new state law and Arkansas School Boards Association policies were also reflected in the proposed handbook changes.

“Most of it was attendance … wording from the school boards association and the Smart Core requirements,” he said. “Students will have to pass (something) kind of like the citizenship exam. You’d take it through your civics class and that’s not this year, but the next. We’ll have to add that in and the year after that, it’ll be required for students to take a finance class to know something about checkbooks, banks and money before they get out and we’ve been doing that. It’s being taught in our economics classes.”

In accordance to Act 1105, which requires districts to “reduce its net legal balance to no more than 20 percent of the public school district’s current year net legal balance revenues” within five years, board members approved a transfer of $49,000 from the building fund back into the operating fund.

Several cafeteria bids were approved at the meeting. Flowers Baking Company will provide bread and Hiland Dairy will provide milk and juice. The groceries and cafeteria supplies will be provided by Sysco and Tankersley Foodservice. They also approved the use of the high school cafeteria for a luncheon hosted by Strong Church of Christ and a class reunion.

Pending ADE approval, the board approved the hire of paraprofessional and assistant coach Alex Howell. After an executive session during a special-called meeting on June 15, Shakita Story’s resignation was approved and Fredrica Quarles was hired to replace the former K-12 counselor.

The Strong-Huttig School Board’s next meeting is scheduled at 6 p.m Aug. 14 in the Strong High School library.