By JEFFREY SMITH
Leader staff writer
Desks are straightened, posters are hung and teachers in the Beebe School District are ready for the start of a new school year Wednesday.
A few changes are in store for students at Beebe High School. The new $7.8 million two-story Career and Technical Center for business, vocational and agriculture classes will open.
An open house was held Thursday. The Career and Technical Center will offer students four new classes: broadcasting, fundamentals of radio, marketing and culinary arts.
Art students will have more room to be creative as the art classes more into the old home economics building.
The grassy football field at A.S. “Bro” Erwin Stadium is being replaced with a $680,000 artificial turf surface. The field will be used by the city’s pee-wee football games on Saturdays and school soccer games. The district is spending $220,000 for the synthetic field with $423,000 coming from donations. Earlier in the year the Beebe School District was awarded an $11,000 joint use agreement grant from the Department of Education for the city and school district to have the city’s pee-wee football teams use the high school football field.
The school will have a new 11-12th grade principal. Scott Jennings replaces Travis Barrentine who will be principal at Conway High School East.
Jennings was an assistant principal at Cabot Junior High South last year and ninth-10th grade assistant principal at Beebe High School a few years prior.
The school district hired Le Chang of China to teach Chinese. Previously, Chinese language classes were taught through distance learning by video conferencing with teachers at the Northwest Arkansas Educational Services cooperative in Farmington.
In other administrative moves, Cecily Tallie is heading the Beebe Pre-K program.
Traffic will be different this year near some school buildings.
California Street in front of the 11-12 high school building and the road in front of the 9-10 building will be closed to through traffic.
Badger Drive will be closed in the afternoons for about 10 minutes when the shuttle buses arrive from Beebe Middle School in McRae and leave for the Early Childhood Building. The drive behind the auditorium and Badger Arena will be closed in the afternoon while students are loading on to the buses.
Gates built by the transportation department to close the roads will be installed this week. The gated roads will be re-opened for events such as football games.
Some teachers were at their classrooms a week before classes start.
“We’re excited about our new students and meeting new parents. We have been working on classroom curriculum, getting ready for Common Core (teaching standard),” Beebe Elementary fourth- grade teacher Allison Shuttleworth said.
Common Core standard are being implemented in kindergarten through second grade. Next year, Common Core standards will used in third- through eighth- grades and ninth- through 12th-grades the following year.
“We’re looking forward to implement the things we learned over the summer,” she said.
“We learned new teaching strategies with new technology,” Beebe Elementary fourth grade teacher Byron Difani said.
Students will be learning with the addition of interactive whiteboards in the classrooms. They will use a hand-held device to answer questions from the whiteboards. Teachers will be able to see responses without delay and give instant feedback.
Beebe Superintendent Belinda Shook said she is looking forward to the new school year.
“I’m excited we have a new building and think enrollment might be up,” Shook said.
She said she is excited about the new people the district hired and new courses the district has to offer.
