Bentonville Education Leaders Meet For Breakfast

Poore
Poore

BENTONVILLE -- The leaders of the city's two biggest educational institutions came together Friday to field questions from local business people.

Michael Poore, the School District's superintendent, and Evelyn Jorgenson, president of NorthWest Arkansas Community College, made presentations to about 110 community members during a breakfast gathering hosted by the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce.

At A Glance (w/mugs)

Friday’s Speakers

• Michael Poore has been the Bentonville School District’s superintendent since July 2011. He was deputy superintendent of curriculum for Colorado Springs (Colo.) School District 11 before coming to Bentonville.

• Evelyn Jorgenson has been NorthWest Arkansas Community College’s president since July 2013. Before that she was president of Moberly Area Community College in Moberly, Mo., for 16 years.

Source: Staff Report

Poore began by talking about the high school. An enrollment of about 4,300 students is expected this fall. He noted the recent recognition from MaxPreps declaring Bentonville's athletics program to be the best in the country for the 2013-14 school year.

"I know some people will say, 'You guys go so overboard on athletics.' Yeah, we do," Poore said.

But the high school goes "overboard" in academics and other extracurricular activities as well, he said.

Poore talked briefly about the design of West High School. Two students were part of the team that helped design the school, he said. Bentonville West is under construction in Centerton and is set to open in 2016.

He also discussed Common Core curriculum, a set of national standards for reading and math that define the knowledge and skills students should have to complete high school.

Arkansas adopted Common Core in 2010. Most other states have adopted it as well, though ongoing controversy surrounding it has led a few states to drop it.

Poore acknowledged there are some people who "would love to tear apart" Common Core, but he defended it because of the increased rigor it brings to classrooms. Geometry principles, for example, are now being taught in the seventh and eighth grades, he said.

Heather Wegner, a Bentonville resident and business owner, raised the Common Core topic again during time allotted for questions from the audience. Wegner, who opposes Common Core, urged audience members to do their own research on it.

Jorgenson offered her own defense of Common Core in response to Wegner. During her years as a community college president in Missouri, Jorgenson said they knew graduates of certain school districts would be deficient in their comprehension of math, reading or writing. That's because each district had its own standards and those standards varied greatly.

Wegner said after Friday's event she agrees with the reasons for Common Core, but she's concerned about centralized control over curriculum, among other things.

"Too many people just do what other people tell them to do," Wegner said. "Do research on this, decide for yourself."

The college does a good job helping students prepare to transfer to a four-year university, but it's also gives students the skills they need to move directly into the work force, Jorgenson said.

She provided statistics from the Northwest Arkansas Council comparing open positions in the region in certain employment areas with the number of 2013 graduates from local institutions capable of filling those jobs. In information technology, for example, there were 1,066 jobs available locally; in 2013, there were 120 graduates who specialized in that area.

Businesses can find employees from outside the region, but that can be expensive and time consuming, Jorgenson said.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could take some community members who are already living here to fill those jobs," she said.

About 60 percent of the college's students are part-time students, she said. Many are older students with full-time jobs and children.

The system measuring college completion rates looks at 150 percent of the time needed to complete a degree, but some people need four or five years to get their associate's degree, Jorgenson said.

"Whether they're 18, 19 or 20 (years old), or 30, 40 or 50, it doesn't matter to us," she said.

Another audience member asked Jorgenson about sports at the college. The college's board recently formed a committee to study having college-sanctioned sports teams.

"We'll do the research and see," Jorgenson said.

There are only two two-year colleges in the state with athletic programs. Both are NCAA Division III schools, Jorgenson said.

That relatively small number is owed in part to the fact Arkansas doesn't allow community colleges to build dormitories. That hurts when trying to recruit athletes at a national level, Jorgenson said.

"Arkansas is not really very supportive of athletics at community colleges," she said.

Sam Dean, Amazeum director, asked about ways the district and the college work together. The two institutions cooperate when it comes to concurrent enrollment, Jorgenson said.

Concurrent enrollment allows high school students to take college-level classes that count toward a college degree. Poore pointed out Amanda Dias-Jayasinghe, Bentonville High's 2014 valedictorian, also graduated from the college with two associate's degrees.

NW News on 08/02/2014

Upcoming Events