Gravette Teachers of the Year honored during special School Board meeting

GRAVETTE — Teachers of the Year for Gravette Public Schools were honored May 2 during a special School Board meeting.

The teachers honored were Mariana Blessing, Gravette High School, Spanish/ESL teacher; Brad Leach, Gravette Middle School, science teacher; Steven Smith, Gravette Upper Elementary, music and band teacher; and Serena Scheele, Glenn Duffy Elementary, special education teacher. Each teacher was presented a certificate and a Bundt cake.

Blessing and Scheele were the only two teachers present at the meeting. Superintendent Maribel Childress announced that Blessing has also been chosen as the district teacher of the year.

Board members entered into an executive session at 6:09 p.m. to discuss employment and resignations. When they returned to open session at 7: 28 p. m., they voted to accept the salary schedule as presented for the 2022-23 school year.

Jay Oliphant cast the lone “no” vote, saying he was opposed because he wanted to give higher raises.

Members also voted to accept the classified salary schedule as presented for the 2022-23 school year.

Members voted unanimously to approve travel for 15 students to attend the Transition Success Retreat at the Arkansas 4-H Center in Little Rock.

Teaching and coaching assignments for the 2022-23 school year were approved in a unanimous vote. Also approved were the voluntary transfer of Michael Kelly from elementary computer tech to high school computer tech and the transfer of Scott Bolduc to the lead maintenance tech salary schedule.

In other business, board members voted to hire Cary Stamps as a business/career teacher at Gravette Middle School, Bambi Hall as a first-grade teacher at Glenn Duffy Elementary and Stormy Pruitt as a first- and second- grade split teacher at Glenn Duffy.