BENTONVILLE -- An unexpected surge in enrollment convinced the School Board to approve adding five teachers to the payroll for the coming school year.
The board held a special meeting Thursday to approve personnel recommendations left from a meeting that had to be cut short last week.
First days of school
Most Bentonville schools re-open for the 2015-16 school year on Aug. 18. R.E. Baker and Elm Tree elementary schools, which operate on the nontraditional calendar, begin Aug. 3.
Source: Staff report
As a last-minute addition to the agenda, Superintendent Michael Poore asked board members to consider approving at least four teaching positions to accommodate growth. After some discussion, the board voted 5-0 to authorize five more positions at a cost of about $300,000.
The district had 16,110 students enrolled as of Thursday, said Dena Ross, executive director of human resources. That's an increase of about 600 students since last fall, a few hundred more than what the district had projected.
"This week we had the registrars back and got to quantify the additional students," Poore said. "The numbers are showing we need an additional four teachers."
Apple Glen Elementary School is over-enrolled by 21 students at the kindergarten level. There's insufficient room at other buildings to accommodate Apple Glen's overflow, Ross said.
Willowbrook Elementary School is over-enrolled by 17 students in the first grade, while Thomas Jefferson Elementary is over-enrolled by six at the same level. Jefferson can handle Willowbrook's overflow and its own with an additional teacher, Ross said.
Fulbright Junior High School, which opened in 2013, now has the largest enrollment of the three junior high schools with 884 students. It needs another social studies teacher, Ross said.
The board agreed to those additions as well as two more teachers at the middle-school level. Those positions are needed because of an overflow of 50 students at Bright Field Middle School.
Poore expressed mixed feelings about making the personnel recommendation at the last minute because two board members weren't in attendance. The board isn't scheduled to meet again until Aug. 10, eight days before the first day of school.
"You've told me you don't like things coming late," Poore told the board. "Can we wait? Yeah. Does it complicate matters? It does."
Ross said the district doesn't really have any option but to hire more teachers because of state restrictions on how many students one teacher can have. Though the new school year is approaching quickly, the applicant pool is still good, she said.
The district's enrollment grew by 2.8 percent last year. Current enrollment is up 3.9 percent over last October.
"We've tried to be conservative in our staffing," Poore said after the meeting. "But we're a community that's growing real quickly. There are 24 people moving into Northwest Arkansas every day. We're getting our fair share of those people."
Thursday's meeting was called mainly for the board to hold an executive session that couldn't be held at the board's previous meeting July 13. That meeting had to be adjourned when board member Wendi Cheatham walked out following an argument with board president Travis Riggs. The board was left with only three members, one fewer than needed for a quorum.
Riggs said at the July 13 meeting Cheatham had held the board hostage by informing Poore she wouldn't attend unless a report related to the district's Equal Employment Opportunity policy was removed from the agenda. Cheatham said she made that request because three board members were unable to attend, and she thought everyone should be there to hear the report.
Riggs called her behavior "disrespectful" and suggested she resign at the July 13 meeting. That's when Cheatham walked out.
Cheatham didn't attend Thursday's meeting. Matt Burgess, another board member, also was absent.
NW News on 07/24/2015