School administrator retiring

FARMINGTON — School Board members accepted the resignation of Assistant Superintendent Terri Strope during their meeting on Feb. 22.

Strope plans to retire June 30, according to Superintendent Jon Laffoon. She has worked in education for 35 years and served the School District for 21 years, he said.

“She’s been a rock in our district and done so many good things. … We’re going to miss her for sure,” Laffoon said.

Strope was promoted from director of instruction to assistant superintendent in 2012. She had experience teaching elementary, middle school and junior high students and spent one year as a school improvement supervisor for the Arkansas Department of Education, the article states.

Strope came to Farmington in January 2000 as the assistant principal at Ledbetter Elementary and was then promoted to school principal.

In her resignation letter, Strope said it has been a pleasure to work with such exceptional educators. She said she appreciated all the opportunities available in the district and hopes that she served the district well.

In other business, School Board members approved an audit report prepared by Landmark Certified Public Accountants for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2020.

The district had a clean audit report and the only negative finding was a material weakness in internal control, a common finding for small school districts with limited staff to segregate duties, according to Dana Crawley, of Landmark CPAs.

“All we wanted to do is bring that problem out to the front so management is aware of it, but we absolutely did not see any problems or anything like that,” Crawley said.

Additional actions taken by the School Board included:

• Approval of the lease of four new buses for three years, including two 77-passenger school buses for three years at a cost of $27,600, and two 89-passenger school buses for three years at a cost of $31,500.

• Approval of inter-district transfers.

• Approval of out of state student agriculture trips.

• Approval of the resignations of Teresa Wood, virtual Arkansas facilitator/online courses; Nancy Butts, junior high library media specialist; Amy Purifoy, high school cheer coach; Tresia Jo Darling, child nutrition cook; Andrea Jenkins, bus driver and third grade classroom teacher; and Randy Osnes, junior high teacher and softball coach.

Strope