Bentonville School Board, Superintendent Discuss Goals

BENTONVILLE -- The School Board and Superintendent Michael Poore met Thursday to review goals for Poore in his new contract.

Poore led the discussion, going over each goal one by one and providing the status of each. He handed out a timeline showing when he and administrators intend to execute those goals or provide updates on them to the board over the next year.

At A Glance

Next Meeting

The Bentonville School Board’s next meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 2 at the School District’s Administration Building at 500 Tiger Blvd.

Source: Staff Report

How to measure and monitor progress toward the goals was another focus of Thursday's discussion.

"This is the type of work a board and superintendent should be doing in terms of establishing goals together," Poore said.

Poore's new three-year contract took effect in July. The goals are new to his contract. They are broken into four areas: academic achievement, financial stewardship, strategic leadership, and community and public relations.

Much of Thursday's discussion focused on increasing the School District's graduation rate by at least 2 percentage points this school year. The district's graduation rate is 86 percent. Poore said he would present a plan for achieving that goal in October.

Poore also explained how the graduation rate is determined. It's based on the number of students who graduate within four years of entering the ninth grade. If a student takes five years to graduate, that student counts against the district's official graduation rate, he said.

Gateway, the district's alternative high school setting, is one way to keep students on track to graduate in four years, Poore said. The board agreed last week to boost staff at Gateway so student capacity could be increased from 60 to 90.

Rebecca Powers, a board member, said boosting the rate is a great goal, but the district also must avoid the perception it's trying to get kids through school as soon as possible at all costs.

"The board is very concerned with rates, but we're not so concerned that we're saying, just push those kids through," Powers said.

Grant Lightle, board vice president, said it's important to identify kids struggling and intervene early to ensure parents are aware of their student's struggles.

"We're asking for a 2 percent increase (in graduation rate), but I would hope we figure out a way that it's very rare a kid doesn't make it through our schools," Lightle said.

Another goal for Poore is to "evaluate and report on the success and return on investment (or lack thereof) on any programs that prospectively are proposed either for launch or removal," according to his contract.

Board members agreed Poore should survey principals and staff members for input on which programs they think the district should implement and which in use should be considered for removal. Then the administration will study those particular programs to determine what effects they could have or are having.

Also on Poore's to-do list is developing a 10-year plan for building the district's next schools. That plan likely will be presented in November.

District enrollment is about 15,600. Demographers have projected enrollment will surpass 20,000 by 2020.

"Addressing the high school growth was great, but we just moved that off our radar, and now we're looking at the next (school)," said Wendi Cheatham, board president.

The question of where and when to buy land for a school is an issue. The board owns land on Bright Road. If the board doesn't view that area as suitable for another school, it should consider selling the land, Lightle said.

Cheatham also raised the issue of realigning grades so elementary schools include the fifth grade again. Bentonville's elementary schools go up only to fourth grade. Transitions between buildings hurt academic performance, Lightle said.

Another goal for Poore is to "foster, maintain and support a cooperative working relationship with the board." Poore said measuring the success on this goal will be difficult, but said conversations such as the one at Thursday's meeting provided a good way to judge progress.

Lightle said that goal is mainly about maintaining good communication with the board.

"No surprises," he said, adding board members should be aware of issues "before we hear about them on the rumor mill."

Board member Brent Leas noted there's subjectivity in Lightle's point, too.

"What comes as a surprise to you might not be a surprise to me," Leas said.

NW News on 08/22/2014

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