Enrollment varies in Springdale

SPRINGDALE — The School District has more students enrolled than ever, but some of its schools have seen student numbers fall from last year, district officials said at Tuesday’s School Board meeting.

Parson Hills Elementary School on the east side of town had around 100 fewer students Tuesday compared to last October, for example. And students from kindergarten to fifth grade numbered around 200 fewer. Enrollment at Helen Tyson Middle School to the west, meanwhile, fell 110.

Those changes come as the district surpassed 22,000 to become the state’s largest this fall, with enrollment on the rise at the Tyson School of Innovation, which just welcomed its first sixth- and 12th-graders, and elsewhere. Springdale and Har-Ber high schools held about steady.

Enrollment numbers can go up and down as families move and so on, Deputy Superintendent Jared Cleveland said. But it’s also not clear that’s all that’s happening. This year could be a blip, or the district’s population could be shifting, Superintendent Jim Rollins told the board. He plans to meet with the district’s principals this week to dig into possible causes.

“There’s a lot of ebb and flow in a lot of areas,” he said, pointing to Tyson Foods and the city’s efforts to revitalize downtown as one example. The sale of Ozark Mountain Poultry to George’s Inc. could make its own difference as well in terms of where the companies’ employees live,

he added. Wyman Morgan, Springdale’s director of administrative and financial services, said last month the city seems to be growing in every direction it can.

“Springdale is a-changing,” Rollins said Tuesday.

Cleveland, who oversees personnel and facilities, said all schools wound up with an appropriate number of teachers and other staff members thanks to attrition and other factors. But falling and rising enrollment, if they’re durable trends, could make it trickier for the district to pick future school locations.

Cleveland said the district plans to open an elementary school around 2021 and has a few good locations to choose from.

Birth locations, the location of housing construction permits and other data give some reference, he said, but Rollins asked the board to start thinking about where the next school should go, too. Kevin Ownbey, board president, said he’d want to hear from city officials and employers such as Mercy Northwest Arkansas about the developments they plan or expect, for example.

In other business, district officials gave an annual report on the district’s performance and overall approach, which includes an increasing focus on students’ having a say in their education. The School of Innovation and others in the district allow students to advance at their own paces, for example, moving quickly if they master a given topic or spending more time on a subject when they struggle.

“We have students all along the continuum of learning,” said Shannon Tisher, School of Innovation principal.

Vanessa Stewart, a fourthgrade teacher at Monitor Elementary School and the district’s teacher of the year, is one of four semifinalists for the statewide teacher of the year honor, Assistant Superintendent Kathy Morledge said. Stewart told the board several state judges visited her school and classroom Tuesday for observations and interviews.

The Arkansas Department of Education plans to announce the teacher of the year later in the fall, according to its announcement of the semifinalists.

“We have students all along the continuum of learning.” —Shannon Tisher, School of Innovation principal