It’s back to reading, writing and arithmetic for students in the Eureka Springs School District.

Classes for the 2024-2025 school year got underway on Wednesday, Aug. 14, after annual professional development days for faculty and staff.

“We’ve had some really good trainings, very informative trainings,” superintendent Bryan Pruitt said. “We had a great week, great conversations and collaboration. I think everyone is excited to be back.”

School safety has been a priority as staff prepared for the new school year, the principal said.

“We had the Department of Homeland Security come in and talk about child trafficking, sex trafficking, labor trafficking, things like that,” Pruitt said. “They really made us aware of some things.

“We’ve really stressed safety. We want to have a safe environment here. When our kids are safe they can learn. That’s a huge commitment for us, to make sure that people are safe. We’ve addressed that and went over drills and procedures. It’s hard to prepare for if, God forbid, something happened, but we try our best to be prepared.”

Teaching practices have also been a focus, Pruitt said.

“We’ve gone over a lot of curriculum and identifying our essential standards, making sure we are all teaching high-quality instructional material,” he said.

The district will continue to use an alternative schedule this year meaning that classes will begin 10 minutes earlier than what was once customary, Pruitt said.

“That will allow us the opportunity to bank five snow days,” Pruitt said. “We’re going to do that again this year and see how it goes. We’re going to start our bus routes about seven to 10 minutes earlier depending on the route to try to get the buses here ahead of some of the traffic.”

For now, the district will continue its current cell phone policy and not opt to request a grant being offered to schools in the state to purchase pouches that lock up cell phones during instructional time.

“The governor came out and announced that 75 percent of the schools in Arkansas would be using those Yondr pouches for cell phones, but we’re going to steadfast on our current policy and see how it goes throughout the year,” Pruitt said. “We have some petty type things that goes on every now and then, but we don’t have an abundance of issues with bullying or cyber bullying, things like that. Not to say we don’t have some, but we don’t have a lot of that.

“So, we’re going to steadfast this year and monitor that and if it’s starting to creep up and we have some issues then we can come back and revisit that.”

Pruitt said students, parents and faculty were recently surveyed with 70 percent saying they were against the idea of using pouches.

“That’s pretty one-sided,” he said.

Going into the first day of school, enrollment numbers were steady, Pruitt said.

“We have 653 enrolled,” Pruitt said Tuesday, Aug. 13. “… That’s pretty normal for us. We normally run 635 to 675.”

Pruitt said in an email Wednesday afternoon that total student attendance for the first day of school was 621.

BOARD MEETING

It was a light agenda at the school board’s monthly meeting on Monday, Aug. 12.

The board heard from SkillsUSA students Aiden Barker, Evan Agresto, Kameron Agresto and Riley Chapman regarding the June national convention they attended in Atlanta with then-building trades teacher and sponsor Jason Hill, who resigned over the summer for a new career opportunity.

Evan Agresto finished third in the nation in plumbing at the event.

Later in the meeting, the board approved the hiring of Matt Eckman as Hill’s replacement.

“He taught three years for us, then went over to the bus shop and was an assistant mechanic for five years,” Pruitt said. “…When the Skills job came open he applied for that. He has a good rapport with our students, and I think he’ll be a good fit for us there.”

The board also received a presentation from student JD Eckman about his project to become an Eagle Scout.

LUNCH FORM ‘IMPORTANT’

Pruitt said the district is requesting that all families fill out the form regarding free and reduced lunch, even if they’re certain they don’t qualify or just don’t choose that option.

“We are encouraging everyone to fill out the free and reduced meal forms,” Pruitt said. “It really helps the district with our federal programs. Whether families qualify or not, please fill it out. It helps because the percentage of people that do it help us with the federal funds that we receive, like Title 1 funds that we can use for reading and math interventions. It’s really important.”

Pruitt said the district will assist in getting the forms filled out, if needed.

“We have kiosk machines up here to help people fill them out,” he said. “We’ll be glad to help them. They are also welcome to call us if they want to be more private. We have people here on staff that will help them because we want to accommodate them.”