The Eureka Springs School District is adopting an alternative calendar next school year aimed at combating the wrath of Mother Nature.

Instead of using a traditional 178-day calendar, the district will use a schedule based on 1,068 hours and will begin each school day 10 minutes early. That will allow the district to build up five snow days over the course of the year that can be used in the event of winter weather.

“We’re going to start 10 minutes earlier, like we are right now, and that will allow us throughout the entire school year to build in snow days,” superintendent Bryan Pruitt said. “That way, if we miss five days we won’t have to make any up. If we miss more than five days we will still have the traditional five days at the end of the calendar.”

Another positive about the schedule is if fewer than five snow days are needed, then those days could be used for Alternative Methods of Instruction days, Pruitt said.

“I think this is really going to be nice for us,” he said of the new schedule format. “If we’re banking five days and only use three snow days, then we still have two days left that we’ve built up. What we can do there is come back with an AMI day where kids wouldn’t have to come. … It’s a win-win for our district. An extra 10 minutes and you’ve got that cushion with snow days.

“It’s a nice little insurance policy for us.”

In past years, districts could use AMI days where students could do assignments from home and districts didn’t have to use a snow day.

AMI days, which were authorized by a 2017 state law, were popular among many districts during winter weather months and became well-known in every district during COVID-19.

Last year, districts in the county had anywhere from seven to nine AMI days because of weather, which all counted toward the mandated 178-day school year.

When the state legislature passed the LEARNS Act, a $50,000 salary minimum was enacted for all teachers and with the state allocating money for districts across the state to help support those raises. However, the LEARNS Act states that for districts to be eligible for funds to implement the salary increases “a public school district shall be open for on-site, in-person instruction for at least” 178 days or 1,068 hours.

The first day of classes for the 2024-2025 school year will be Wednesday, Aug. 14.

OTHER ITEMS

In the monthly principals report, the board heard an update on the classroom walk-through evaluation program done by principals on each of the three campuses, Pruitt said.

“We are doing it district- wide in all three buildings, just looking for high-quality instruction materials and high-quality teaching,” the superintendent said. “We are using it not necessarily as an evaluation but a means to improve teaching, making sure we are having high-quality teaching, using high-quality materials. It’s all about improving instruction.”

The walk-throughs are approximately two to three minutes long in each classroom, Pruitt said.

“The principal walks in to see what the teacher is doing, making sure objectives are on the board for what they are teaching,” he said. “They will talk to a student or two and see if they know what the objective is. Look to make sure there is good, quality instruction.

“We want to improve on our high-quality instruction district-wide. We have great teachers and we want them to be doing an excellent job.”

The board also approved a licensed salary schedule for teachers, which will reward long-time instructors or those with higher degrees.

“A lot of people were raised to $50,000 with the LEARNS Act,” Pruitt said. “Next year the LEARNS Act will not be supplementing those salaries so we went ahead and rewarded our teachers because they do work hard. If they work hard and are committed then we need to pay them.”

Pruitt said the new salary schedule will cost the district approximately $160,000 more than the current schedule.

“We’re financially sound enough that we can do that and still maintain good financial standing,” he said. “… It’s nice to reward our teachers. We always want to try to do that when we can.”

In personnel actions, the board approved the resignations of Chrys McClung, who is retiring as the elementary school’s instructional facilitator, elementary teacher Brianna Head and child nutrition director Adrian Jesse.

Hires approved were high school english teacher Ben Johnson, K-6 counselor Anna McIntyre, 5th grade ELA teacher Jarrett McIntyre, 7-12 counselor Gena Wenger and food service worker Lynette Morris.