District Opening New Facility

Building Will House Springdale Administrators

Joanna Maddox, professional development assistant for the Springdale School District, left, and Uni de la Teja, federal programs assistant for the district, organize de la Teja’s office Monday at the district’s new professional development building in Springdale.
Joanna Maddox, professional development assistant for the Springdale School District, left, and Uni de la Teja, federal programs assistant for the district, organize de la Teja’s office Monday at the district’s new professional development building in Springdale.

— Jo Vanderspikken smiled as she gazed upon her new office Monday. She hadn’t quite finished unpacking, but she clearly was enjoying the place already.

At A Glance

The Perry Professional Development Center

The building is named in honor of Jack and Janet Perry, who sold the building to the district. Superintendent Jim Rollins has called the Perrys “advocates for quality education” who have a deep interest in the schools.

Source: Staff Report

“I feel like it’s the first day of school again,” said Vanderspikken, the school district’s coordinator of gifted-and-talented and economic education. “It’s a beautiful building. I’m really excited about it.”

Vanderspikken is one of a dozen district-level administrators and administrative assistants moving this week about two miles from the Archer Learning Center in downtown Springdale to the new Perry Professional Development Center, housed in the former Cannon Express building at 1457 E. Robinson Ave.

The School District bought the 12,000-square-foot building in September, then embarked on an extensive renovation project to make the building fit the district’s needs. The project is nearly done, though some technological work remains. Plans are to replace the windows and pave the parking lot later this year.

The district paid $675,000 for the building and has spent an additional $130,000 renovating it, according to Gary Compton, assistant superintendent for support services.

The renovation included installing a heating and air conditioning system, lights, insulation, carpet, flooring and walls to create rooms.

The building contains three meeting spaces of various sizes, the largest of which can comfortably seat about 80 people for professional development purposes. There’s also a conference room that accommodates about 10 people.

The district holds some kind of professional development activity almost every day, Vanderspikken said.

Vanessa Sbanotto, who handles the district’s substitute teachers and serves as a secretary for two administrators, had her office set up and ready to go in the new building by Monday afternoon.

“I think (the building) will be a lot more accessible for the subs,” said Sbanotto, who has a view of U.S. 412 traffic from her desk. She said the construction crew did a “great job” on the renovation project.

The district hosts training for substitute teachers once a month. Sbanotto processes the teachers’ applications, checks their backgrounds and handles their fingerprinting.

Bobby Cole, the district’s testing and data coordinator, also will work in the building. Next to his new office is a storage room that eventually will contain dozens of boxes filled with student tests.

The easy access to the storage room is more favorable than the arrangement at the old facility, where he had to go outside and around the building to retrieve needed data.

“This building will make all of our jobs much easier,” Cole said. “It will be a benefit to the entire district.”

Others administrators who will work at the building include Allison Byford, instructional technology coordinator; and Kim Glass, coordinator of teachers on special assignment.

The move to the Perry building frees space at the Archer Learning Center, the district’s alternative learning school. The planned expansion there calls for an additional 10 classrooms, Compton said.

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