Vaughn gets a school, again
VAUGHN — When it came time to name the Bentonville School District’s 13th elementary school, residents of the community made clear their preference.
“The residents of Vaughn came to us very early and said this was a really important community. It would mean so much if you would name this elementary school after the Vaughn High School that existed,” said Superintendent Debbie Jones, addressing a crowd at a ribbon cutting for the school on July 18.
Vaughn Elementary School — at the corner of Southwest Barron and Opal Roads — will open to about 600 students in kindergarten through fourth grade when the new school year starts Aug. 15, according to Leslee Wright, district communications director. The school has a capacity of 730.
The school board unanimously selected the Vaughn name in November.
Vaughn Elementary is a mile northeast of where the old Vaughn School once stood on Arkansas 12.
Former state Rep. Dan Douglas, a community resident, spoke at a school board meeting last fall where he encouraged the board to choose the Vaughn name. He said the old Vaughn School was built in 1913 and served first through 12th grades until 1950. The building sat vacant for decades; what was left of it was torn down about 10 years ago.
Vaughn is an unincorporated community on the outskirts of Bentonville. It was once a “vibrant” community, and it had more than just a school, Douglas said.
“It had two feed stores. It had a blacksmith’s shop. It had two grocery stores. It had a canning factory where they canned tomatoes. It had an apple dehydrator there,” he said.
Susan Anglin, a Benton County justice of the peace, and her husband, Ryan, attended last week’s ribbon cutting. The Anglins own 240 acres across the street from the school.
Ryan Anglin, 68, has lived in the area his whole life.
“It brings the community back,” he said of the new school. “Because your community circles around the school. And we’d lost our community in Vaughn.”
In the early 1960s, Vaughn students were consolidated into schools in Bentonville. Consolidation of Centerton and Cave Springs schools soon followed, Anglin said.
“Now we’ve got a school back in every one of those towns that was consolidated when I was in first and second grade,” he said.
Chad Mims, formerly principal of Cooper Elementary School in Bella Vista, is Vaughn Elementary’s first principal.
Cindy Sanchez will teach second grade at Vaughn. She’s worked for the district for eight years. She applied for a job at Vaughn because she thought it would be fun to help open a school.
She’s also excited about the school’s focus on STEM — science, technology, engineering and math — which she said will be integrated across the curriculum.
The school’s classrooms feature a large television screen at the front of the room and windows that stretch most of the way from the floor to the ceiling, providing plenty of natural light. Peek outside and you might see some cows grazing in a field across the street.
“It’s really pretty,” Sanchez said. “Our playground looks fabulous. And then all the land around it. I’m sure pretty soon it will build up all around us.”
Jones spoke of growth during her remarks last week.
“We understand that when we build a school building, we forever change the landscape and the economy around us,” Jones said. “The apple orchards, the canneries and the farms of the Vaughn community leave behind the very lessons that we can follow to build this school community: a love of the land, the will to work hard and the desire to be kind and care for our neighbors. As we teach the young, let’s not forget the lessons left behind from our farmers.”
Vaughn will be the ninth new school the Bentonville School District has opened since 2012. District enrollment has grown about 25% in that time, from 14,880 in fall 2012 to 18,536 last fall.
The district has spent $19.9 million to design, build, furnish and equip Vaughn Elementary, according to Janet Schwanhausser, deputy superintendent and chief financial officer. This is not the final cost, as the district has not been billed for the last 30 days of construction, and the contract will remain open as the school is opened, she said.