Decatur schools back in session Aug. 15
DECATUR — Many new and exciting experiences await students as Decatur begins the 2016-17 school year Aug. 15.
The Decatur Public School District was recently awarded a 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant. This is a five-year federal initiative to bring exciting after-school and summer-learning opportunities to all grades of Decatur students.
Our goal will be to provide opportunities that offer remedial academic activities and enrichment, including tutoring services to help students in literacy and math meet state and local student academic achievement standards.
Parents will be happy to know these programs will continue to be free for all students. The district has secured $660,000 to fund these programs. Students will be offered a broad range of programs and activities that engage youth development, such as archery, fishing, martial arts, art, music, recreational sports programs, technology education programs, character education programs and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), designed to reinforce and serve as an extension of the regular academic school day.
The Decatur Public School’s after-school program will be called SPARK (Strengthening Personal Development and Reinforcing Knowledge). A daily schedule of activities and programs will be provided, including guest teachers that are specialists in their field. Students will take field trips to complement learning and complete community and school service projects.
One of the most exciting aspects of this extended service is that the district is attempting to be able to serve dinner during the program. School staff are in the final stages of approval for offering dinner to all program participants and hope to begin by October. The district is also able to provide free meals to all students for all school days with the board’s recent adoption of the Community Eligibility Provision. Information for the program will be available at Open House. Open House will once again be drop-in at your convenience anytime from 11-7 on Thursday, Aug. 11.
The district will continue to partner with the Boys and Girls Club of Western Benton County during the program.
The district expressed its thanks to chief professional officer Chris Shimer for his guidance during the program, as well as Richard Page, superintendent of Gravette Public Schools, who started a similar program in Gravette a few years back. Both men provided insight in helping the district secure this grant. The district thanked Mayor Bob Tharp for agreeing to partner with the district in the use of city parks.
The grant team of Julia Coffman, Devon Courtney, Kelly Hankins and Jacque Smith did an outstanding job writing this proposal which was well-over 100 pages long.