Lakeside schools plan later start than others

HOT SPRINGS — While most Garland County public school districts return to the classroom starting Monday, students in the Lakeside School District will have an extra week to prepare.

Lakeside will start classes Aug. 21, having set its annual calendar two years ago following the passage of Act 688 of 2021, which said schools could not start any earlier than the Monday two weeks before Labor Day. Lakeside School Superintendent Bruce Orr said the schedule was set early due to the community’s request for planning purposes.

The last day of school will be May 31.

“When they had that as the law, we had set a calendar plus the next year’s calendar because our community had asked us to really try to get the calendar out as early as we could for planning purposes,” he said Friday.

“So we set a two-years’ calendar and then last year they changed it back to how it used to be, where you could start the week before. We had already set our calendar and we just felt like people might have already planned a trip that week before or something so we just went ahead and left our calendar the same.”

Orr said the district received feedback from the parents and community about the calendar moving forward, however, and that it will continue to before setting next year’s calendar.

“We’ve got some students that are going to be on the committee, so we will look at the new law changes for options moving forward into the ’24-’25 school year,” he said.

Orr, who begins his first year as superintendent following Shawn Cook’s retirement this summer, said he is excited to begin the year.

“I’m not just saying this, I feel like I’m back to my first year,” he said. “I have that kind of energy and excitement right now. You know, [Thursday] we just finished up with our new staff orientation and we welcomed all of our new staff members and spent three days with them doing a lot of training and team building. And after spending that time with them, I’m just literally on fire right now.”

While this will be his first year leading the district, this marks his 19th working at Lakeside.

“My very first job ever in public education was back in 1998 and I was substitute teacher at Lakeside Middle School. So I started as a substitute at Lakeside and here all these years later, to be able to be the superintendent of this school is a tremendous honor and one that I do not take lightly,” he said.

Orr said there are several physical improvements on campus heading into the new year, such as new signage, improved communication devices, a new sound system at Chick Austin Stadium, and new flooring in some buildings. This year’s theme is “Better Together.”

“Safety’s always our first priority,” Orr said. “We spent a lot of time last week talking about that. We’ve added an additional resource officer this year and we’ll have three commissioned officers on campus, so we feel really good about the direction it’s going there. Plus, we’ve expanded our new intercom system that communication on our campus is at an alltime high right now.”