Students, Staff Feel Pressure

BENTONVILLE — Bentonville High School senior Lucky Cozzani must walk from the third floor of the North Building to the second floor of the South Building to get from one of his classes to the next.

At the same time, he contends with a few thousand other students who also are trying to get to their next class. The trek takes him about 10 minutes, he said.

“I’m pretty close to being late every day,” he said. “Teachers are usually cool with it because they understand how long that walk takes.”

The school’s hallways have been crowded for years, but the crowding is expected to worsen. Enrollment has grown from 2,200 to more than 4,000 over the past 10 years and is expected to surpass 5,000 by 2016. Officials have said the school’s ideal capacity is 3,737 students.

That’s why the School Board will build a second high school if it can win voters’ approval of a 2.9-mill tax increase on the ballot Sept. 17. It will be the second time the board has tried to secure money for a second high school in 15 months.

The high school’s enrollment has forced staff to make numerous adjustments and get creative with space.

This year, for example, 65 teachers have no classroom to call their own. They wander from one room to the next with their materials on carts.

Candi Metzger is one of those teachers. During the first week of school, her first-period English class had to meet in the commons area because administrators were still trying to prepare a room for that class.

Working off a cart, and steering that cart through crowded hallways, can be a challenge.

“I’m constantly saying, ‘Excuse me, excuse me, coming through,’” Metzger said.

Not having a permanent classroom is tough for both teachers and students, Metzger said. For the teachers who don’t have to float, they still must share their rooms with other teachers, which is not ideal for them, she said.

Jack Loyd, an assistant principal, said floating teachers don’t have the luxury of using time between class periods to make adjustments to lesson plans. In some cases they might have to use class time to set up.

There are other ways rising enrollment affects the school, Loyd said.

One is parking. Eventually the school will have to prohibit sophomores from parking on campus because of space availability, Loyd said.

“It helps us to have kids drive to school, because then we don’t need so many buses,” Loyd said. “And a lot of kids have jobs to drive to after school.”

Class scheduling becomes exponentially more complicated as more kids move into the school, he said. It’s not as simple as hiring more teachers.

“There’s a trickle-down effect that affects the whole school,” he said.

Loyd said the students’ and staff members’ good attitudes have made it possible to deal with the high school’s heavy enrollment so far.

“That’s what saves us,” Loyd said. “I just don’t know where we’d be without the teachers and staff we have.”

Chloe Burton, a senior, said it’s hard to walk in the hallways between classes, and she didn’t get to eat lunch Tuesday because the lines were so long. Vehicle traffic in the mornings also is bad, she said.

“I didn’t expect traffic to be this bad,” Burton said. “I parked at the (Tiger Athletic Center) today, even though you’re not supposed to.”

Bentonville High School has four full-time nurses on staff. On a typical day, the nurses have about 200 visits from students and staff members, according to Jenny Fox, a nurse.

Responding to an emergency between classes — a seizure, for example — can be challenging because of how many people nurses must weave through to get there, Fox said.

But Fox and fellow nurse Laurie Darby, both of whom have students at the school, said they think Bentonville High is a safe place.

“We do have the personnel and supplies to respond to emergencies,” Fox said.

The school has two police officers and three security guards on campus.

Steve Vera, a Bentonville police officer who’s been assigned to the high school for 13 years, said the increase in students this year is noticeable, but added he still feels comfortable with the level of safety.

“We’re doing everything we can to make sure we’re implementing all the security measures and make this as safe an environment as we can,” Vera said.

A survey conducted by Walmart in June showed 58 percent of likely voters would vote for the School Board’s tax proposal, but some remain undecided.

Scott Widen, a Bentonville resident and chairman of the Benton County Tea Party, said he recognizes the need for a second high school, but he fears too much money will be spent on the building’s aesthetics.

He said he has discussed the issue with some Tea Party members, and they would like to see the School Board invest more in teaching kids specific skills they could use to get jobs straight out of high school.

“I hear it all the time from employers — we’d be hiring but we need skilled trade people,” Widen said. “I wish Bentonville would lead on something like that instead of putting money into some fancy schools. We just think the money is being misdirected. It should be going to the kids and learning versus beautiful schools.”

Grant Lightle, a board member, said the project’s cost will be consistent with similar projects in the area.

“We’re definitely sensitive to that,” Lightle said. “It’s going to be cinder-block construction with polished concrete floors. We scrutinized all the material out there. The other thing is, we’ve got a construction manager with an interest in making sure we’re under budget, because their engagement is for one project, and if they want to do work for us in the future, they need to overdeliver.”

Lightle said the proposed second high school, which will cost $86 million, is comparable to the new high school being built in Joplin, Mo., for $95 million.

“I don’t think anybody is going to look at what we’ve come up with and find a lot of wasted funds,” he said.