EHS principal highlights school’s success
El Dorado High School principal Sherry Hill told members of the district’s school board last week that the school is exceeding the state’s expectations in many areas.
In addition to winning several awards recognizing students’ growth in achievement, EHS also had increased enrollment this year. And there’s plenty for the high school’s 1,319 students to do, since EHS offers 179 more courses than the state requires, 217 in all.
“I think it’s important, especially as we are the largest school in this area, to talk about exactly what we offer, and quite frankly to showcase what we offer above what students can find anywhere near us,” Hill said. “Thirty-one courses are also offered at SouthArk. We have 18 Advanced Placement courses and we have eight concurrent (college credit) courses.”
The specialized course offerings – which range from career-readiness focused classes in software development, pre-engineering, social services, culinary arts and more to advanced fine arts training and high-level academic lessons – give students opportunities to learn about themselves and grow as individuals, Hill said, sharing a story of one student whose interest in journalism helped turn around previous behavioral difficulties.
“I was this child’s principal when she was in seventh- and eighthgrade, and she was in the office all the time, in trouble. Ninth-grade, in trouble quite a bit. Tenth-grade, got a little better. Eleventh-grade, she found her passion,” Hill said. “It’s not because, necessarily, anything we did so much. It’s just that she’s found her passion, and people at the school fueled that. Her teachers did… That’s what our school can offer for folks that won’t show up on test scores.”
The district also matched or exceeded the state average standardized test scores in reading, math and science, and was only a hair under the state average in English language arts test scores, an improvement from 2021, when most subjects’ scores were about a point below the state average.
“You really want to try to be at that state average, or above if you can,” Hill said.
The school’s Quiz Bowl teams also recently won first-place in a local competition – coming in somewhere around 80 points ahead of the second-place finisher – and will compete in a regional competition in March.
“And it’s not just Quiz Bowl – a lot of our CTE (career technical ed
ucation) classes, they get to compete in different competitions, DECA, FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), they all get to compete and have been successful,” Hill said.
The Wildcat Café, a student-run coffee shop and snack bar, was recognized recently as well, Hill said, earning a Gold-level certification from the national DECA career technical education organization.
Fifteen members of El Dorado’s band and orchestra programs have been named to the All-State band, along with 24 others who, with the All-State students, qualified for the Region III All-Region band.
Students are also preparing for their futures through EHS’s career technical education, including the school’s new agriculture program. Facilities for the program are currently under construction, and will include a shop area, classrooms, a greenhouse and, eventually, farm animals.
“I can’t wait until it’s open. I don’t think anyone around is going to have anything like it,” Hill said. “Last year, the first year, we had 39 students in FFA (Future Farmers of America)… This year we have 60 in there.”
Eventually, students will sell the products from their agriculture classes and the money raised will go back toward the program’s funding.
EHS also hosted a college and career fair in the fall, where 50 businesses, ranging from major industrial employers like Delek to local, small businesses, coming to tell more than 300 students about what they do.
“We also want not only for kids to succeed in what they’re doing at El Dorado High School currently; we also want to help prepare them, with the El Dorado Promise, to be ready for college and we want to give them every opportunity that we can for them to explore,” Hill said.
Students are also involved in giving back to the community, such as through this month’s “Kindness Week” and the Beta Club’s fall “Socktober” sock drive for the Salvation Army, Hill said.
School Board members thanked Hill for her presentation and congratulated EHS for its achievement recognition at the meeting held Feb. 13. The next regular El Dorado School Board meeting is scheduled for Monday, March 13, at 6 p.m.