Ninth Grade Academy Being Planned

FARMINGTON — The incoming ninth grade class at Farmington High will be the first group to be part of a new Farmington Freshman Academy, that will operate similar to a school within a school on the high school campus.

Farmington High Principal Bob Echols will take over as principal of the freshman academy and the students will attend most of their classes in seven rooms located in the west end of the senior hall.

Echols said the school will build a wall to separate the west end of the building from the rest of the hallway. The ninth graders will have their own restrooms in their end of the building.

The ninth graders also will have their own lunch period at 10:30 a.m. each day.

“We’re going to give them the building blocks so they’ll be more successful than the kids who’ve come before,” Echols said.

Echols said school officials have discussed a ninth grade academy for several years and became more serious about the discussions last fall. Echols and other staff members toured the new Van Buren High School Freshman Academy and liked what they saw. Van Buren’s ninth graders are in a former junior high building, located about one- fourth mile from the main campus.

The Van Buren program just opened in August 2012, and already teachers are “finding great things,” said Lisa Miller, principal of Van Buren’s freshman academy. “Attendance is up, discipline problems are down. As a whole, the school has a 3.0 GPA or better.”

Miller said the ninth graders are “taking ownership of their own education,” by reviewing their transcripts and setting goals in their classes.

She added that Van Buren considers the freshman academy a transition to preparing ninth graders for the rest of high school. The goal of the academy is to increase the number of students who move to the high school and are on track to graduate.

“The ultimate goal of high school is to increase the graduation rate and I personally think that anything we can do to increase the rate of graduation is worth it,” Miller said.

Echols said a pivotal piece of the new Farmington Freshman Academy will be the “keystone program,” which is used in Van Buren and will be taught in Farmington by high school teacher Dawn Hill.

Hill recently told the Farmington School Board that this program will introduce ninth graders to high school. Students will focus on study skills, raising test scores, time management, how to be successful, long-term and short-term goals and college and career options.

Farmington’s freshman academy will be home to about 191 ninth graders who are members of the graduating class of 2017. The class size of all courses offered to freshmen will average 24 students.

The core ninth grade teachers will be Aly Martin for English, Amy Taylor and Melissa Carter for math, Charice Handford in science and Jed Beall and Tracy Sutton for social studies. Other classes will include band, choir, drama, agriculture, Spanish and family and consumer sciences.

Sections of pre-Advanced Placement courses will be available to those students who meet the prerequisites.

Echols said he is looking into the possibility of having some teachers come to the ninth- grade wing to teach electives and as much as possible, he said he wants the elective classes to only have ninth graders.

Echols said he was interested in becoming principal of the Freshman Academy because of the challenges facing ninth graders. He has worked in the Farmington School District for 25 years and his experience includes teaching seventh, eighth and ninth graders.

“I think my demeanor is kinda geared to working with younger kids,” Echols said. “Ninth graders are still little kids but they are starting to grow up on you. They are starting to develop their own ideas and they are still hungry for school.”

Julia Williams, principal of Ledbetter Intermediate, has a daughter in ninth grade and her youngest daughter will be a member of the first Freshman Academy.

Williams said she’s been happy with her oldest daughter’s ninth grade year but also is looking forward to the new program.

“I am very excited about the Ninth Grade Academy,” Williams wrote in an email. “I know that a lot of research and planning has taken place to ensure our student’s success as they enter high school.”

Williams said she believes the groundwork already in place and the strategies that will be implemented reaffirm that “my girls are being taken care of and that their needs socially, emotionally and academically are being considered.” FAYETTEVILLE — Voters living near the rural coverage areas of four fire districts could hit the polls this summer to decide if Washington County should place member dues on property tax bills.

The County Services Committee on Monday approved a request asking the Quorum Court to call a special election for the Morrow and Strickler fire departments, the Lincoln Rural Fire Association and the Prairie Grove-Farmington Fire Association.

The Quorum Court later this month will discuss the issue, and if approved, an election could take place July 9, said George Butler, county attorney.

Fire crews for the Prairie Grove-Farmington Fire Association maintain a 99-squaremile coverage area, said J.C. Dobbs, Prairie Grove fire chief.

Residents living outside city limits are asked to pay $50 per year for dues, Dobbs said. He said his association has about 1,100 memberships but expects that number could be a lot more.

“We’ve had this members program year after year,” Dobbs said. “We send out mass mailings and notices to encourage them to pay their fire dues.”

Residents outside Lincoln city limits are asked to pay $ 50. Those near Strickler should pay $50, and $25 for people living near Morrow, according to requests given to Quorum Court members.

All county fire departments respond to all nearby fires, whether property owners pay or don’t pay rural district membership dues, said John Luther, director of the county’s Department of Emergency Management.

Property owners who don’t pay membership dues will be billed by the local fire district for the response. Dobbs said the average bill for nonmembers is $1,000.

If the Quorum Court, and later voters, approve the election, nine of the county’s 18 rural fire districts would maintain similar billing systems.

Voters within the Goshen Fire Department’s coverage area were among the first in the county to approve the billing system in 2010. Nathan Wood, fire chief, said membership has doubled since the county began collecting dues.

“We went from about half of the residences in our area being members to probably close to 90 percent,” Wood said.

Wood said last year his department took in about $120,000 in membership dues, about twice what they had collected before their election.

The extra revenue, along with state grant money, was enough to upgrade equipment and purchase a new rescue truck, he said.

The County Clerk’s Office, Assessor’s Office and Department of Emergency Management will determine how many homes, businesses and voters are within each district, if the election is approved by the Quorum Court.