Prairie Grove Seeks Elementary Administrator

PRAIRIE GROVE — Prairie Grove School District is seeking to fill an administrator’s position with the resignation of Jonathan Warren, co-principal at the elementary school.

Warren turned in a letter of resignation June

14 and the School

Board accepted his resignation at the June 17 board meeting.

Warren will serve as a migrant specialist at the Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative in Farmington, effective July 1, and be director of the migrant program, according to Missy Hixson, assistant director of the co-op.

Hixson said this position has been at the Boston Mountain

Education Service Cooperative in West Fork, but the Arkansas Department of Education has moved it to the Farmington building. The person who filled the position in West Fork has taken a job in education elsewhere.

Warren has been with Prairie Grove School District since 2003. He’s been assistant principal at the middle school and principal of the intermediate school. When the school district closed its primary school and moved those students to the intermediate school, Warren was named co-principal along with Brenda Clark for Prairie Grove Elementary School.

Warren, last week, said he saw the new position at the cooperative as an opportunity he did not want to pass up.

Reba Holmes, superintendent of schools, said the district has advertised the job as an elementary administrator. She said the decision will be made later on the job title for the new person and would depend on the administrator’s experience and training.

Other personnel decisions made June 17 included resignations from teachers Julie Mileham, Lauren Morgan (effective Dec. 31) and Rob Seal.

The school board voted to hire Dave Torres as athletic director and head softball coach, Jason Turner as a elementary teacher and five others as paraprofessionals.

Other approved changes are to move Mat Stewart to head girls’ soccer coach, name Tommy Roy as assistant girls’ soccer coach and assistant volleyball coach, and move Mason Pinkley from assistant softball to assistant soccer and Jo Ellen Threlkeld from sixth grade science to seventh grade science.

Shawn Witt, technology and security director, gave a year-end review that showed his department closed a total of 2,049 work orders for the year, compared to 1,812 the year before.

The school has installed 88 classroom door locks to improve safety, conducted lockdown drills, formed a safety committee and is participating in the formation of a regional school resource officer group, according to Witt.

Witt reported the district received a reimbursement of $5,705 from the e-rate federal program to help with the costs of a $8,150 networking project. Witt said the school’s cost was only $2,445 for the project.

Witt’s department also is configuring 440 new Chromebooks for the 201920 school year. These laptops will be divided among the three school buildings. Witt said Prairie Grove now is 1:1 Chromebooks for all students in third-eighth grades.

In other action, the school board renewed the district’s property insurance coverage with ASBA Risk Management for $72,872, approved a five-year school beverage contract with Ozarks Coca Cola Bottling Co., at a value of $43,380 and approved its agreement with Ozark Guidance Center for a lease agreement for $50 per year for the 2019-20 school year.

Holmes reported that Prairie Grove has been approved to continue a second pre-kindergarten program for 20 students.

She also said the district will partner with PG Telco to pay one-half the costs to seal and stripe the back parking lot behind the administration office on Buchanan Street. Sisemore Paving Maintenance has the paving contract for $10,400.

Allen Williams, assistant superintendent of finance, will take leadership of the district’s off-campus deliveries for the next school year, Holmes said. Williams already is over the on-campus alternative learning program. Off-campus learning programs include homeschool students, homebound students, virtual instruction and blended learning for students who are both on and off campus.

Warren