School district excited about new year
As we all have enjoyed our summer break, the teachers and administrators of El Dorado School District have been busy attending workshops, training sessions, and conferences to help us prepare for next school year.
We are excited about the upcoming year at our schools.
We have some fantastic growth to celebrate from last school year and some new things we look forward to putting in place this year.
We are proud to be able to offer free school supplies to all of our K-4th grade students this coming year. We appreciate the support of our community that allows us to help alleviate some of that financial burden for our families. We are also pleased to be able to expand our free meal program this year to add 7th and 8th grade students. That means all K-8th grade students in our district will receive free breakfast and lunch daily.
Over the last couple of years in our district, we have implemented many new intervention programs to help build solid foundations for reading and writing at the elementary level. Our preliminary results show promising growth and we look forward to building on these programs to help our students succeed.
We know that the most important thing a student can have is a good teacher, so we are partnering with the New Teacher Center to implement a New Teacher Induction Program. One of our experienced teachers, Stephanie Lowrey is taking on the new position as the Program Leader, working with the New Teacher Center to provide a strong support system for new teachers.
We are the first school in the state to take such a committed approach to support teachers.
Forty-five (45) of our veteran educators will be involved in this program as mentors.
All of these mentors have a passion for helping new teachers and developing themselves in this upcoming year.
As we look forward to the new school year, we have changes in our top administrators at three of our schools.
We are confident in these staff members that we were able to promote from within our district and look forward to their leadership in our schools. At Hugh Goodwin Elementary, Jesica Collins was named Principal in May.
Mrs. Collins has been with the District for 11 years, most recently serving as the Assistant Principal at Hugh Goodwin and Northwest. Raven Swint will be the new fulltime Assistant Principal at Hugh Goodwin. Kristen Thomas will be the new full-time Assistant Principal at Northwest Elementary.
At Barton Junior High, Mark Smith will assume the role of Principal as Sherry Hill moves on to become Principal of El Dorado High School. Two new assistant principals will join the leadership at Barton – John Davis and Andria Gleghorn.
Additionally, we have several new coaches in the district and are excited about the upcoming year for Wildcat Athletics.
We hope you and your children have enjoyed the summer break. We look forward to seeing you on the first day of school, Tuesday, August 13th.