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The Berryville School District will add 28 minutes to each school day beginning Monday, March 4, a move that will allow students to make up days missed because of winter weather and still finish on the originally scheduled last day of classes.
At its monthly regular meeting held Monday, Feb. 19, the board approved the move, which was then approved by the Arkansas Board of Education.
“A lot of schools are transitioning to an alternative calendar from the normal 178day calendar,” Berryville Superintendent Owen Powell said. “We chose to take advantage of that to make up our snow days.”
The 28 extra minutes added to each day will go through the end of the year, Powell said.
“That will enable us to make up those four days that we missed due to weather and still puts our end date on May 24,” he said. “In a nutshell, what that enables us to do is, instead of tackling all those four days at the end of the school year we’re adding those 28 minutes and we will still get out at our normal time that we set at the beginning of the year for the calendar.”
In the revamped schedule, the middle school and high school will start the day at 7:45 a.m. and each of the seven class periods will have four additional minutes, the superintendent said.
“The middle school and high school will start 10 minutes earlier than what they normally start and then they’re going to end the day at 3:24 p.m., which is 18 minutes longer.”
The elementary and intermediate campuses will now start at 8 a.m. and dismiss for the day at 3:33 p.m.
“Hopefully all this snow and these missed days are behind us,” Powell said.
OTHER ACTIONS
The board learned that the Arkansas Department of Education approved the district’s waiver request to start the school year before the originally mandated earliest date of Aug. 19.
“That’s a pretty late start,” Powell said, adding that the district will now be able to start on Monday, Aug. 12.
The board also voted to approve certified nurse substitute pay from $100 a day to $150 a day, Powell said. Anyone serving as a long-term substitute teacher will now get $200 a day.
“The same for licensed substitute teachers… goes from $100 a day to $150 a day and after the fifth day consecutive for long-term subbing goes to $200 a day,” he said.
The board also voted to approve a fuel purchase of $21,481 and approximately $50,000 in replacing internal network switches. A federally-funded program will pay for 80 percent of the $170,218 total for the project, Powell said.
Also approved was the purchase of two basketball shooting machines at a cost of $12,079.
The pee-wee basketball program donated $3,250 for the project with the remainder being split between the boys and girls basketball programs, Powell said.
PERSONNEL ACTION
The board approved the resignation of intermediate teacher Valerie Standrige, high school teacher Madison Phillips and special education paraprofessional Gladys Arrizon.
The retirements of middle school teacher and coach Aaron Hall and special education supervisor Apryl Harmon were also approved as were the hires of Samantha Burke as Bobcat Academy substitute and David Mike Campbell as custodial substitute.
The contracts of all administrative positions with the district were also approved.
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