Low interest rates bring bond savings for district

PRAIRIE GROVE —The School District will save more than $1.6 million in interest costs through a savings refunding bond issue that was approved at the School Board’s Dec. 22 meeting.

Dan Lovelady with First Security Beardsley gave a final recap on the bonds issued by the school district and said he had good news to report.

The district sold $8.8 million in refunding bonds on Dec. 9, and received four bids. Stephens Inc. submitted the lowest interest rate for paying back the bonds, a 1.3926% interest rate, Lovelady said.

Farmers and Merchants Bank in Stuttgart will serve as bond trustee.

Lovelady has explained a savings refunding bond issue is when an entity, such as a school district, takes existing bond issues with a higher interest rate and reissues them at a lower interest rate to save money in interest costs.

Lovelady said the district will close on the transaction Jan. 14 and the trustee will disperse the funds at that time.

The total available proceeds for the district will be $8,715,063 after all fees and other costs have been paid. The first payment of about $60,000 will be due in August 2021.

The district’s total savings over the life of the bond issue will be $1.6 million, with more than $400,000 in savings the first three years, $200,000 in savings the fourth year and the rest spread out over the life of the debt, Lovelady said.

“Congratulations,” Lovelady told the board through the meeting, which was held in person for board members and school staff and virtually for other participants. “This is fairly significant savings and we’re very glad rates have stayed where they are for this long a time.”

In other action, the board approved a recommendation from Assistant Superintendent Pete Joenks to amend the district’s attendance policy for students who choose online instruction.

In a Dec. 10 memo to Superintendent Reba Holmes, Joenks said he has been trying to decide how to address online instruction students who are failing most of their classes. Joenks wrote his investigation shows the students have little to no engagement with their online instruction.

Joenks told School Board members about 20 students in online instruction are not participating in their classes. Joenks said this involves less than five students at the elementary school, five to six students at the middle school and junior high and 10-12 students at the high school.

“The frustrating thing is we can’t get a hold of the parents,” Joenks said, adding, “This is not just Prairie Grove. It’s all over the state.”

The district’s current policy says after a student misses 10 days of class, the district can file a Family In Need Of Services (FINS) petition with Washington County Juvenile Court.

Joenks said he talked to juvenile court staff, and they indicated the court may have a problem enforcing the petitions unless a school has an attendance policy regarding attendance for online instruction.

The new policy for students attending school online takes effect with the second semester and attendance will be based on a demerit system.

Teachers will review the progress of their online students each Monday morning to determine whether a student should receive a demerit for lack of attendance. Demerits will be based on the student’s effort from the previous week.

A student will be assigned a demerit if certain situations are observed, such as if a student demonstrates no effort or engagement with their daily online instruction. If a student earns a demerit during one week, then that student is marked absent for the entire week. However, principals have the discretion to change these absences at a later date, if warranted.

The policy says an unexcused absence would be an absence where parents haven’t communicated why their children were absent from online instruction, such as a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment or a family emergency.

Joenks said the school will address a student’s lack of attendance in online instruction through email and phone calls to check on the student. If a student continues to receive demerits for absences, then the school principal, school counselor or another staff member will call the home. If a student accumulates four demerits, then a home visit will be made and a certified letter will be sent to the student’s home.

If the absences continue, the student will be dropped from online instruction and reinstated to on-site classes. If the student fails to show up to school after three days, the district will file a Family In Need Of Services petition based on failure to comply with the Arkansas compulsory attendance statute.

The policy gives building principals the authority to modify the procedures due to extenuating circumstances.

Joenks said the new policy is for the most extreme situations, for those students who aren’t showing up online at all and aren’t doing anything.

“With online instruction, we can go on and see how much time they’ve spent on the computer,” Joenks said. “If they’ve tried online, we’re not going to count them absent. It’s the ones who haven’t done anything.”

He added, “We want to work with parents. We’re not trying to send kids to court.”

Holmes said the district is constantly looking at what is working and what is not working. The new policy gives staff another option to be able to talk to parents, she said.

For those students who did not do any work online the first semester, the school has sent out letters asking them to consider returning to faceto-face classes to catch up the second semester, Joenks said.

“We don’t want to continue the pattern the second semester,” Joenks said.

For some of these students, it’s possible they have moved out of the district, Joenks said.

“But I think it’s our duty as educators to expend all we can to find out why they aren’t there,” he said.