PBSD is mulling school’s location
Less than a year after its closure, the former Jack Robey Junior High School is being considered as a temporary location for Pine Bluff High School while a new campus is built.
Officials with Lewis Architects Engineers and East Harding Construction Co. updated Pine Bluff School District board members Monday evening on the progress toward having final construction plans approved for the new high school, which will replace the existing campus on West 11th Avenue. Clayton Vaden of Lewis Architects Engineers said his firm is close to finishing drawings and plans to have them completed by the end of this month.
“Once we finish the drawings, we will submit them to all the agencies that need to review the drawings,” Vaden said, naming the Arkansas Department of Education, the state fire marshal’s office and the Arkansas Department of Health, among other entities. The review process usually takes four to six weeks, he said.
Once approved, Lewis Architects would then hand off the drawings to East Harding Construction to advertise for subcontracting bids.
“Typically a project of this size, they would want a month to advertise,” Vaden said. “It would be a statewide advertisement.”
While Pine Bluff High School is remodeled, reopening Jack Robey on South Olive Street is a strong possibility.
The district is considering using that campus for a twoyear period after it was determined that the new PBHS will have to be constructed off the Harding Drain for the site plan to work, Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree explained. East Harding President and CEO Van Tilbury revealed that East Harding is working on a budget for preparing the building, adding that contractors are taking into account needs such as roofing, kitchen equipment, restroom renovations and painting.
“The scope, however, is not completely defined,” Tilbury said, addressing a question from a board member.
Jack Robey closed at the end of last school year as part of a merger of the PBSD’s secondary schools for financial reasons, according to Barbaree. To put in a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning system — which could be covered by federal funds — would require replacing the roof, which at the time was estimated at $12 million to $13 million, Barbaree said at the time.
Barbaree said this week that funds from the district’s capital outlay funds will be used to prepare the old junior high, which she said will not undergo a roof replacement but will have working air conditioning units.
A guaranteed maximum price on the high school project is expected by late March or early April, Vaden said. The Pine Bluff School District received state funding toward completion of the new campus in 2021, and voters approved a millage increase to raise $67.34 million for the project last August.
YEAR-ROUND SCHEDULE
Kourtney Smith, chairman of the PBSD’s personnel policy committee, requested a special board meeting in early February to recommend a year-round school calendar that would take effect in the 2024-25 school year.
About 460 people took part in an online survey about the potential for classes to begin earlier in the summer and end later than usual, according to Barbaree. Schools in Arkansas usually schedule 178 days of classes between mid-August and late May, with the possibility of making up days in early June.
Offering data from the survey, Smith said 66% of district employees were in favor of year-round schooling, as were 74% of community members, 55% of parents and 49% of students. District employees, Smith said, were then presented with two drafts of a recommended school calendar.
“One of the main reasons we decided to explore an early start was because of something we looked at last year, which was, number one, burnout,” Smith told the board. “Whether you’re a teacher or a student, when you’ve been in education for some period of time, you start to hit a wall at some point if you don’t have those breaks. Especially between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, there is nothing but straight schooling. Being able to afford our students, as well as our staff, more brain breaks, in theory, could help us get to some academic gains.”
Smith added that the Hamburg School District, one of four in Arkansas that have adopted a year-round calendar for this school year, reported a 100% increase in attendance and a “stark decline in discipline referrals.”
DISCIPLINE DATA
Of the 3,194 students across the PBSD, 863 of them accounted for 1,911 office discipline referrals this school year, according to data released Monday.
The referrals were grouped by general-education and special-education students. Among 711 unique general-ed students, 1,534 total referrals were made, with 152 special-ed students accounting for the other 377 referrals.
Pine Bluff Junior High had the most referrals to date with 675. Pine Bluff High School was second with 232.
A bar graph revealed that fights are the most common offense resulting in a referral, with insubordination the second-most common.
Assistant superintendent Phillip Carlock illustrated the five steps of the district’s positive behavioral intervention and support plan: stop responding to inappropriate behavior, maximize structure, set clear expectations and rules, improve student engagement in the classroom and acknowledge appropriate behavior.
PERSONNEL MOVES
The district accepted resignations from junior high administrative assistant Debra Bell (effective Feb. 2), James Matthews Elementary custodian Hazel Jackson and junior high paraprofessional Erica Rayner. Junior high parapro Shelia Brasfield turned in a letter of retirement (effective Dec. 10).
Contract addenda were awarded to bus attendant Sharcrista Miller (from fulltime to part-time) and junior high district security officer Randy Phillips. Both were effective Jan. 8.