06/15/15  State Board Try's To Help Pine Bluff Schools

 

According to a report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette over the weekend, the Arkansas Board of Education's academic-distressed committee directed state school improvement specialists to expand their work in individual Pine Bluff schools to include district leaders in efforts to advance student achievement.

The state committee members, who questioned whether it was time for “emergency surgery” in the district, asked for an update in two months on the 43 hundred student school system that's operating with an interim superintendent, a declining enrollment and four schools that are labeled as academically distressed or priority schools because of  chronically low student achievement.

The schools are Oak Park Elementary, Belair Middle, Jack Roby Jr. High and Pine Bluff High. Academically distressed schools are those in which fewer than half of the students at scored proficient levels on math and literacy exams over three years.  Priority schools are among the lowest achieving five percent of schools on state tests.