Business as usual for PSD

PRESCOTT – A trio of purchases were approved by the Prescott School Board at its June meeting Thursday night.

The purchases were for programs to help improve reading scores in the district. All three will be paid for with grant funds, not operating funds from the district. They will be used in K-8, being added to the curriculum. It was said a lot of students are in need of tier 3 intervention when it comes to reading. This is because of problems at the tier 1 level. All of the programs have been approved by the Arkansas Department of Education, are high quality and evidence-based.

The IREADY ASSESS program will require professional development for teacher training to best utilize it. The Magnetic Reading Curriculum provides books for students, though these aren’t textbooks. Students will take workbooks home to work on, and they’ll be assessed using digital programs, similar to video games. These programs will show who has and hasn’t mastered the skills required. With the RTI, students can be assessed on a weekly basis to show their status and help them overcome problems.

In other business, the board approved removing items from the district’s fixed inventory list. Superintendent Robert Poole said these are items that are damaged, can’t be repaired and need to be disposed of.

Several policies were also adopted involving board governance, licensed personnel, students and classified personnel.

New state requirements require school board to approve a resolution naming the superintendent as the district’s representative to educational cooperatives. This was done at the meeting

The board also approved transferring funds from the operating budget to the building fund to stay within the mandated 20 percent ending balance.

A student transfer was denied by the board as it would require the hiring of additional staff.

Enrollment at the end of the 2022-23 school year was 892.

The proposed budget for the 24-25 school year was approved as required by law, though it doesn’t have to be followed and will be changed later.

The board also approve keeping the current ground service crew for the 23-24 school year.