BENTONVILLE -- The School Board unanimously voted during a special meeting Tuesday to hire a new district athletic director and a principal for an elementary school that's integral to the district's model school initiative.
Billy Tipps will be the School District's next athletic director. He's served in that post for the Enid (Okla.) Public Schools since 2018. It's Tipps' 26th year in education, and he has a master's degree from Pittsburg State University, according to the Enid Public Schools website.
Tipps is the second athletic director the Bentonville board has hired in the past month.
The board promoted Chris Hutchens from Bentonville High School athletic director to district athletic director during its meeting May 16.
But Hutchens ultimately decided to stay in his job at Bentonville High, said Leslee Wright, district director of communications.
Hutchens has been with the district for 26 years, including the past four years as Bentonville High School's athletic director.
"We're grateful for his leadership on that campus," Wright said of Hutchens.
Tipps will succeed Scott Passmore, who resigned to take a similar position at the Thaden School, a private school for grades 6-12 in Bentonville. Passmore has been district athletic director since 2011.
The board also voted Tuesday to hire Jeff Wasem as principal at Jones Elementary School. Wasem has been principal at Rogers Heritage High School for the past two years and formerly worked for the Bentonville district, including a total of nine years as principal -- first at Old High Middle School, then at Creekside Middle School.
Superintendent Debbie Jones said last month the district is working with a federally funded organization -- the Region 14 Comprehensive Center -- to create a model school plan for downtown, starting with Jones Elementary.
The reason for the initiative is that student growth is expanding outside the district's downtown area, creating enrollment challenges there. The district is forced to bring students in from miles away because of the limited population within the heart of the city, Jones said.
Aside from Jones Elementary, other centrally located elementary schools are Apple Glen, Baker, Sugar Creek and Thomas Jefferson. Jones said the focus is on beginning the process with Jones and perhaps Baker.
"We are looking at, over the next year, doing a really deep study and trying to create a model school downtown, starting with Mary Mae Jones Elementary, maybe R.E. Baker," Jones said at the May 16 board meeting. "We want to take both through the whole discovery process. If we can open both as model schools, that'll happen in 2024. We will at least open Mary Mae Jones in 2024."
To guide the project, the district teamed up with the Region 14 Comprehensive Center. It's one of 19 Regional Technical Assistance Centers in the country and provides customized and adaptable support at no cost, according to the Region 14 website.
"Our goal is to improve instruction, education distribution, education effectiveness and to really close achievement gaps," Kristin Nafziger, Region 14 director, told the board May 16. "We see this as a project that's right in that sweet spot for us. How do we take the best of what's out there and apply it to Bentonville?"
Jones and board members see the community's desires and opinions as the keys to developing a successful and sustainable model.
The Region 14 center is funded by the U.S. Department of Education to help states and local agencies advance federal priorities, Nafziger said, and serves school districts in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.
Other administrative hires unanimously approved by the School Board on Tuesday, according to district information, were:
Stephanie Buerkle, principal at Elm Tree Elementary
Jessica Imel, director of Ignite Professional Studies
Callie Sanchez, principal at Fulbright Junior High
Kendra Schacht, principal at Vaughn Elementary
Model school timeline
Introducing the process and visiting Bentonville schools, May-June
Research — engaging the community, May-August
Research — identifying exemplar schools to visit, June-July
Selecting and visiting exemplar schools, August-October
Selecting a final model and designing an implementation plan, October-November
Developing a "playbook" and sharing the process with other Arkansas districts, in 2024
Source: Kristin Nafziger, Region 14 Comprehensive Center