Classroom addition complete at Northside Elementary
Preschool students will be heading into brand new classrooms when they start school next week.
Students in the Siloam Springs School District went back to school for the fall semester on Monday but preschool students are not scheduled to start school until Aug. 21.
Contractors spent the summer building a 5,500-square-foot addition to Northside Elementary School, which includes four prekindergarten classrooms each with their own restroom, cubbies and cabinets. The addition was paid for by a $500,000 grant from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, with the balance coming from district funds.
At Thursday’s school board meeting, architect Michael Spaeth reported that the project was substantially complete as of July 31. The contractors did a great job of completing the job and meeting the original schedule, despite unusually wet weather in the spring and early summer, he said.
Spaeth shared pictures of the building with the school board showing that landscaping was already installed around the building, with sodded grass covering the bare dirt left behind by the construction process.
School board member Roger Holroyd said he recently drove by the building and was impressed with how the addition looks like it is part of the original building.
“It just looks really, really good,” Holroyd said. “Hats off to everybody involved in the project and the commitment to early childhood education that it represents.”
“I can’t wait to see kids in the classroom and kids on the playground,” Wiggins said.
School board members also heard a report about the summer lunch program during Thursday’s meeting.
Jason Carter told school board members the program grew by 85 percent compared to the previous year. Last year the school district served about 12,000 meals or snacks. This year, the district added a meal site at the middle school and served local children a total of 22,460 meals or snacks over the summer, including 18,638 lunches, 649 breakfasts, 2,035 mobile meals and 3,173 snack packs.
The meal program is open to all children in Siloam Springs regardless of whether they attend Siloam Springs Schools or whether they qualify for free and reduced lunches. The Boys and Girls Club started serving their students through the school district’s lunch program, which allowed the district to have enough participation to open the new location at the middle school, Carter said. The district served a total of 5,000 meals to club members, he said.
Potters House partnered with
Bright Futures Siloam Springs and the summer lunch program to craft, games and entertainment at the meal program’s mobile sites on Thursday morning, which also helped boost numbers, Carter said.
In other business, school board members approved a memorandum of understanding between the Career Academy of Siloam Springs and the Arkansas Construction Education Foundation.
The understanding will allow the two organizations to collaborate to provide night classes for adults, according to Superintendent Ken Ramey. The agreement will allow ACEF to use school facilities and equipment.
The organization will also provide instructors for the apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs held at CASS.
The school board took the following additional actions:
• Approved the resignation of Valarie Howe, high school language arts teacher.
• Approved hiring Cheryl Cox to fill Howe’s former position.
• Approved hiring Jacob Cockcroft, middle school speech-language pathologist.
• Approved the transfer of one student from the Gentry School District into the Siloam Springs School District.
• Approved the transfer of seven students from the Siloam Springs School District to the Gentry School District.
• Approved allowing teacher Kailey Greenleaf to work through her prep period.
The next regular school board meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14, in the school board room at the middle school. A special school board meeting to pass the annual budget will be held at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21, in Superintendent Ken Ramey’s office.