Nearly One-Third Of Fayetteville Students Will Move To New Schools Next Year

FAYETTEVILLE -- Nearly one-third of the students in Fayetteville will be switching schools next year as grades are realigned in elementary, middle and junior high schools to accommodate adding ninth grade to the high school.

The largest shift involves the high school. Some 690 students in eighth grade this year and 733 ninth-grade students will move to the high school as ninth- and 10th-graders.

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Transition Plan

Keep up with the Fayetteville School District’s transition plan on the district website, fayar.net.

Fourth-graders, currently 766, will move to the middle schools, which will be realigned to accommodate fifth and sixth grades.

The junior high schools will be rearranged for seventh and eighth grades, meaning 734 of this year's sixth-graders will be moved to the junior highs as seventh-graders.

Committees of administrators, teachers, parents and students are looking at everything from bus schedules to class schedules to curriculum and team teaching strategies to ease the transitions, one of the largest ever in the district.

This year's enrollment is 9,503 of which about 3,000 will be switching schools. "It's challenging but doable," said Kim Garrett, associate superintendent for secondary education that covers middle schools, junior highs and the high school. Her experience includes participation in a similar effort in Bentonville when the ninth grade was moved to the high school.

There has been no discussion about changing school zone boundaries, Garrett said.

The School Board approved the changes several years ago. They are timed to coincide with the completion of the $95 million high school transformation. The work is targeted to be finished in August before school starts Aug. 17.

Teachers

Teaching assignments have or will be changed. About 51 teachers still need to be reassigned and they will be used first to fill vacancies or teach new courses before the district goes outside to hire teachers, said Greg Mones, human resources director.

Some 22 teachers have moved to new assignments. For example, an elementary teacher at Asbell Elementary this year moved to McNair Middle School. A math teacher at Holt Middle School moved to Fayetteville High School.

Garrett and Mones are confident those 51 teachers will have teaching assignments next year. Mones said he is working on having all of them placed by May 1. Of the 51, 25 teachers are working on one-year contracts that stipulate they may not have a job in the district after this school year.

Students will know which school they are attending next year and have dates for Career and Academic Planning conferences in all the secondary schools by Dec. 1. The dates for the conferences, usually held in the spring, will be posted on the district website.

The course selections students make in those conferences determine staffing levels at the high school, Mones said.

Pre-Engineering Curriculum

The pre-engineering programs available to eighth through 12th grades will be expanded to include fifth, sixth and seventh grades, said Marianne Hauser, director of professional development and career education. Study topics include robotics, energy, DNA and crime scene analysis.

Fifth- and sixth-grade students will be asked to solve real-world problems, such as cleaning oil spills and designing sustainable housing. Seventh-graders will explore topics such as flight and space, electrons and green architecture, Hauser said.

Eighth-graders will be offered an introduction to computer science. The courses will provide a strong pathway to the Advanced Placement computer science elective at the high school, Hauser said.

Ninth-grade students will be divided between two small learning communities, Garrett said.

Work continues on potential changes to the bell schedule at the high school, which will effect the lunch schedule. The School Board has said the high school should go to a closed campus when the ninth grade moves in. Seniors are allowed to go off-campus for lunch.

Determining ninth-grade athletic teams is up in the air. The Arkansas Activities Association approved the district's request to use a geographic lottery to fill two teams previously at Ramay and Woodland junior highs, Garrett said. The geographic boundaries for the new teams haven't been developed, Garrett said.

Administrators, teachers and parents have been invited to a discussion later this month to decide how to label the newly aligned schools. Some have suggested calling McNair and Holt the lower middle schools and Woodland and Ramay the upper middle schools, Garrett said.

NW News on 11/10/2014

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