El Dorado Superintendent updates school board on building projects
Teacher, student, employee of the month honored during meeting
The El Dorado School District’s school board held its monthly meeting last Monday at the district’s Central Office.
The meeting began with a six-year master facility plan presentation by Superintendent Jim Tucker. The presentation featured Tucker updating board members and attendees of the public meeting of the substantial projects undertaken by the district in the last half-decade as well as upcoming projects.
Past projects include a completed new women’s restroom at Memorial Stadium, school security upgrades, a multi-purpose facility, service center, athletic training facility and more.
Tucker briefly discussed the new restroom before detailing features of the district’s $1.5 million in security upgrades.
“We have bullet-resistant glass at all our entrances, we are installing access control systems throughout the district that monitor all outside doors… For example, I can lock down every outside door in the district just with the touch of my phone,” Tucker said.
He next remarked on the district’s completed $3.1 million multi-purpose facility, located at El Dorado High School.
“It’s the only fully covered football field in the state and it’s used by almost everybody. Our band uses it, every sport uses it, elementary schools use it for field day, we have job fairs and award presentations under it. It was a very nice addition,” Tucker said.
The completed, nearly $3 million service center, which houses transportation, maintenance and food service facilities in one building and on Parnell Road was the next topic.
“If you’re familiar the district, we had these three [facilities] at separate locations and the buildings they were in were not in good shape at all,” Tucker said.
Another building completed in the last six years is the EHS athletic training facility, a $667,000 project.
“At the time the high school was built, it wasn’t built for ath
letic training. We have an athletic trainer now who has classes she holds… We added this onto the south end of the high school, its a nice facility,” Tucker said.
The district’s $3.3 million agricultural facility, finished this summer according to Tucker, was the next project discussed.
“It’s also on the south side of EHS and it has a massive shop that has… a barn area, two classrooms, two offices and two restrooms… We have welding, carpentry, electrical,” Tucker said.
Other projects mentioned included eight classrooms added to North West and Hugh Goodwin Elementary Schools, EHS flooring and restroom remodels, a special services facility, pick-up changes at NW and Washington Middle School.
“That’s a total of $20.7, right at $21 million, and those are some of the projects we’ve had over some of the past five years actually,” Tucker said.
For upcoming projects, Tucker mentioned first a capital project to replace the roof at Murmil Heights Education Center and pick-up renovation at Hugh Goodwin.
The biggest upcoming project for the district by far is the planned intermediate school, set to be located on the grounds of the former high school off Timberlane Drive.
52% of voters in the district voted to approve a 5 mill increase back in August, paving the way to fund the district’s newest school.
The school board, following the presentation, voted unanimously to approve the six-year master facility plan.
Also during the meeting a video was shown featuring a number of ESD faculty and staff members expressing appreciation for school board members for Arkansas Board Member Recognition Month.
Monthly student, classified employee and teacher of the month awards were also given out during the meeting by board member Wayne Gibson. This month, Barton Junior High School was the focus.
Camdyn Jacobs,a BJHS 7th grader, was named Student of the Month; Dorris Johnson,a BJHS cafeteria employee , was named Classified Employee of the Month; Tammy McCloy,a 26-year veteran of the district and science teacher, was named Teacher of the Month.