Correction: The public school in Snowball closed in the late 1970s, said Vicki Martin, who works in the genealogy department of the Searcy County Library. The time period of the school’s closing was incorrect in this article.
Hartford School District Superintendent Teresa Ragsdale knows some families moved out of state during the summer, but she won’t know the full effect on the district’s enrollment until classes start Monday.
“We’re going to be real close to starting the year at 350,” said Ragsdale, who is starting her fourth year with the district.
Enrollment is a constant battle for the Sebastian County district that has seen its number of students rise and fall from 392 in 2007-08 to 343 in 2010-11, and then to 399 in 2011-12 and to 356 last year, Ragsdale said.
Hartford is among the state’s 12 school districts with enrollments under 400 students.
Since 2004, state law has required districts to merge - either voluntarily or under the direction of the state Board of Education - when their enrollments fall below 350 for two consecutive years. Enrollments in three districts - Hughes, Mulberry and Stephens - dipped below 350 last year.
Small communities have rallied to recruit students, with school officials making home visits and some providing iPads to high school students, or residents taking in foreign-exchange students.
“It’s just a constant threat to these small schools to always be under the gun, not only to maintain facilities and teachers and provide a good education,” said Renee Carr, executive director of the Rural Community Alliance, a statewide organization with 1,500 members and 57 chapters. “They simply could be closed because of that number.”
Most annexations and consolidations since 2004 have resulted in school closings. From 2004-10, 118 school districts merged. During that time, 81 schools - including 45 high schools - closed, according to a 2010 report by the Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Schools are the hub of social and economic activity for small communities across Arkansas, Carr said. When schools have closed, businesses have followed, she said.
“If you’re rural, your school is probably the most important thing in your life, the most important institution in your community,” said Carr, who lives in Fox in Stone County. “It’s everything to a rural community.”
Efforts to provide jobs help attract people to a community and boost school enrollment, she said.
Residents in some communities, like Dermott in Chicot County, have gone door-to-door encouraging parents to enroll their children in the local districts, especially if the children were being homeschooled or had transferred to a neighboring district, Carr said.
“You can never rest,” she said.
FIGHTING TO HOLD ON
In Mount Judea - part of the Deer-Mount Judea School District in Newton County - people working through the Mount Judea Area Alliance have also focused on the community, organizing activities that larger communities might not be able offer, said Sharon Pierce, a Mount Judea resident who is president of the School Board.
Mount Judea consolidated with the Deer School District in 2004 to create a district with an enrollment of more than 350, she said. The new district’s enrollment in 2004-05 was 479, but it dropped to 337 in 2011-12. Enrollment rose to 366 last year.
“Last year, a lot of people that wouldn’t have done it, took in foreign-exchange students to help our numbers,” Pierce said. “Everybody’s looking for ways to attract and keep students.”
Pierce said what motivates her efforts is seeing the effects of school closures on once-vibrant communities like Snowball in Searcy County. Snowball lost its school in the 1960s, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
“It’s like a ghost town,” Pierce said. “It’s sad for me to think Mount Judea could end up like that because our school is our largest employer.”
The Hughes School District in St. Francis County is in the state’s Mississippi River Delta. The region lacks jobs that would attract families, said interim Superintendent Sheryl Owens, a 35-year school district employee.Community members have tried to attract business, but without success.
“They come in and do their assessment,” she said. “They decide this is not the best place to build or invest in.”
Declining enrollment in the district led to financial trouble and the state Board of Education classifying the district as being in fiscal distress, Owens said.
Hartford School District is also classified in fiscal distress.
“We have done some heavy recruiting in our community as far as trying to sell our school district,” Owens said. “I feel confident that our numbers will be above 350when we start school.”
With a $1.7 million three year federal School Improvement Grant, the Hughes district is purchasing iPads for all students in grades seven through 12, and is developing an incentive program for students who show progress in academics, attendance and behavior, Owens said. The incentives for seniors include a tour of colleges in Atlanta.
“That’s a lifesaver for us,” Owens said of the grant. Without it, “we wouldn’t be able to offer incentives to at least attract some of our students back.” MULBERRY UPBEAT
Leaders in Mulberry have a sense of optimism about the Mulberry-Pleasant View Bi-County School District, which covers parts of Crawford and Franklin counties.
Between the 2007-08 and 2012-13 school years, the highest enrollment was 455 students. That was in 2007-08. Enrollment dropped to 420 students in 2008-09, hovered around 400 students for the next three years and then dipped to 348, according to Arkansas Department of Education statistics.
But an edamame processing plant opened in Mulberry in 2012 and is preparing for an expansion. Also, a precast concrete manufacturing firm plans to build a plant in Mulberry, Mayor Gary Baxter said.
The industrial activity is attracting dozens of jobs to the community.
“Things are going to continue to get better,” he said. “We’ve got a healthy community.”
The district is spending $32,000 to provide iPads starting this fall for all 10ththrough 12th-graders, Superintendent Dana Higdon said.
“We believe so much in technology,” Higdon said. “It’s something we decided was important to do.”
The district plans to mail a newsletter to residents to highlight the schools’ successes in academics and sports, Higdon said. Students competed at the state level in senior high school girls basketball and softball, tennis and track. The 28 members of the class of 2013 earned a combined $600,000 in scholarships and grants for college, she said.
The Mulberry-Pleasant Valley Bi-County School District is one of 35 districts classified as “achieving” by the Arkansas Department of Education. That classification is based on student performance on state tests.All districts in the state not classified as “achieving” are considered to be “needing improvement.”
Stephens School District, primarily in Ouachita and Columbia counties, has a new superintendent who is putting priority on student discipline and academics to restore parent confidence in the district.
Superintendent Patsy Hughey began working July 26. The district has a kindergarten- through sixth-grade campus and a seventh through 12th-grade campus. She hired a second principal to put a principal on both campuses.
“Any issues that occur, it can be taken care of immediately,” Hughey said. “There were some times when discipline got out of hand at the high school.”
Teachers have attended training from the Arkansas Leadership Academy on working in professional learning teams, an increasingly common educational philosophy that is new for the district, Hughey said. The high school is switching from a seven-period day to an eight-period day to allow more instruction for students with low scores on state exams.
Hughey hopes the extra time will lead to higher scores on state tests.
Teachers also will use testing data to more closely track student progress, Hughey said.
“The school district has been losing enrollment,” Hughey said. “This is where we are. We want to do better. We want our school to stay. We want to educate our students.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/18/2013