BENTONVILLE -- More than 30 people have shown an interest in being the School District's next superintendent, according to a representative of the firm assisting with the candidate search.
Bill Newman, national director for Ray and Associates, visited with the School Board at its meeting Monday. The board hired Ray and Associates last month to recruit and evaluate applicants for the superintendent's job.
Survey breakdown
A online survey seeking input on the search for Bentonville School District’s next superintendent drew 908 responses. Here’s the breakdown of how respondents identified themselves:
• Parents: 525
• Teachers: 225
• Support staff: 54
• Students: 30
• Administrators: 29
• Non-parent community members: 26
• Others: 12
• School Board members: 7
Source: Ray and Associates
Superintendent Michael Poore is leaving the district after this week to begin his job as superintendent of the Little Rock School District. Deputy Superintendent Debbie Jones will fill in until the board decides on a replacement for Poore.
"Better than 30 have already shown an interest in the job. So it's looking good," Newman told the board.
The firm will continue to accept applications for about another month. The board aims to select a new superintendent by early August, but may postpone a selection if board members aren't happy with the pool of candidates.
Newman's primary purpose of meeting with the board was to present results from a recent online survey seeking input on what characteristics community members would most like to see in the next superintendent. The survey offered 33 characteristics and asked participants to choose the 10 they deemed most important.
A person who "inspires trust, has high levels of self-confidence and optimism, and models high standards of integrity and personal performance" was the top selection. A "strong communicator" ranked as the second most popular choice. A person who is "strongly committed to a 'student first' philosophy" ranked third.
Those and other characteristics will be included in a job description that will be distributed to those who are interested.
The popularity of each characteristic was broken down by the segment of the community responding, including teachers, administrators, support staff members, parents, students, board members and others.
Support for each characteristic varied from group to group. "Ability to develop both short- and long-term goals," for example, ranked fourth most important among board members, but only 15th among teachers and 22nd among administrators.
More than 900 people took the survey, which Newman said was a very good response.
"I've been in districts four times larger than this and to break 400 (survey responses) was a good deal," he said.
In other business at Monday's board meeting, Matt Cook, principal of Sugar Creek Elementary School, gave an update on ACE Academy, an alternative learning environment for elementary students that just completed its first year.
ACE stands for Academic and Character Excellence. The program is housed at Sugar Creek and accepts kids from across the district who require additional support because of academic, social, emotional or behavioral issues.
ACE consists of two classrooms: one for students in kindergarten and first grade and another for students in second through fourth grade. Each classroom has a capacity of 12 students.
Twenty-eight students were referred to the program and 21 were placed, Cook said. All but one of the district's 10 elementary schools, Elm Tree, was represented by those students.
Student progress was tracked in four areas of focus: task orientation, behavior control, assertiveness and social interaction with peers. On average, students made significant gains almost across the board in those categories, according to data Cook presented.
Parents also gave the program high marks. In response to a survey, all parents involved said the experience with ACE had been positive for their child and family.
The district's long-term plan is to open an alternative education facility for grades kindergarten through eight that would serve about 1 percent to 1.5 percent of students in those grades. The district already operates an alternative education setting for high school students, called Gateway.
It's uncertain when that long-term plan will materialize, said Jones, the district's interim superintendent.
"While there are some options we're looking at, opening West (High School) is taking priority," Jones said.
ACE received a Model Program award for alternative education from the Arkansas Department of Education last month. It's the first such program to receive that award in its first year, Cook said.
NW News on 06/07/2016