Prairie Grove schools to focus on 4 safety objectives

PRAIRIE GROVE — The Prairie Grove School District will have four safety objectives for the 2023-24 school year, according to Shawn Witt, chief information and security officer.

The safety objectives:

• Close doors — All exterior building doors will be closed and locked. Classroom doors should be closed and locked when students are present.

• Wear badges — Staff members should wear ID badges at all times in the school buildings.

• Single point of entry — The building office will be the single point of entry for all visitors.

• Visitor Management System — Visitors are to wear ID badges at all times when inside the building and should be checked in and out with the visitor management system at each school office.

Witt reported on the objectives during the Aug. 15 meeting of the School Board. He said justifications for the objectives come from state law, from recommendations by the Arkansas School Safety Commission and from the Arkansas School Safety Grant received by the district.

Witt said he plans to bring the board more information this year on safety data from the schools. He’s developed a school safety assessment form to gather weekly data, and this will be presented quarterly to the school board to “tell you how we are doing.”

In other news, Prairie Grove Junior High will specifically focus on math scores for seventh and eighth graders during the 2023-24 school year, according to Pete Joenks, assistant superintendent of curriculum.

Joenks gave a report on testing data for the spring ACT Aspire scores. He compared Prairie Grove’s scores with the state average and with average scores from similar-size school districts in Northwest Arkansas and said Prairie Grove did significantly better in some areas and needs improvement in others.

“Our district priority is to figure out what’s going on in seventh and eighth grade in math,” Joenks said. “Our desire is we see a significant increase in math scores because this is what we’re not used to in Prairie Grove.”

For the English assessment, the percentage of students who scored proficient or higher was above the average for the state and regional results in third, fourth, sixth, eight and 10th grades.

For the reading assessment, Prairie Grove’s percentage of students performing proficient or higher was above the state and regional average for students in fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth and 10th grades.

For the science assessment, Prairie Grove students in third, fourth, sixth, seventh and ninth grades performed better than their counterparts in the state and Northwest Arkansas, according to the results.

Joenks also reported on scores from Advanced Placement tests in the spring. He said the high school had 161 students taking AP courses and gave 270 AP exams. Of these students, 78 students, or 48.45%, earned a “3” or higher on their exams, which is considered a passing grade.

The district had a successful “back to school” rally for staff with participation from the high school choir and high school band, according to Joenks.

Several students spoke during this rally, and as they talked about what they wanted from their schools, the consensus was to “have fun, play games and build relationships.” The staff’s goal will be to take those comments and use them to fit into the curriculum instruction, Joenks said.

Ann Dunham, district treasurer, said the district ended with a $3.7 million balance, which allowed the school to transfer $2 million to the building fund.

In addition, the School Board approved a memorandum of understanding with the city of Prairie Grove for school resource officers. It says the program is designed for the officers to fulfil three overall roles: law enforcement officer, mentor/informal counselor and educational resource.

The district pays 75% of the salary and the city pays the remaining 25%. Contracted days are Aug. 1 to the last day of the school calendar.