Berryville School District to serve local beef

Students in the Berryville School District will be served locally grown beef next year.

The district board voted during its meeting on May 16 to approve a contract with Green Forest-based 5Hills Ranch to provide beef for the district.

Superintendent Owen Powell said the move was necessary under a new state law.

“Act 796 requires school districts to have a goal to purchase food-service items locally if possible,” Powell said. “We put a lot of things out to bid, including our beef purchase, and we had a local group get that. It’s the first one, to my knowledge, that the district has. This next school year, we will buy all of our beef from them. That’s pretty neat.”

Powell called the decision “exciting,” and said it would be good for the district and the community.

“It’s always good to spend your money locally if you can, so we’re excited to be able to do that,” Powell said. “I think it’s really cool that it’s grown just right here.”

The board also approved the purchase of 1,100 Chromebook cases for $14,785, a portion of which will go with the 450 Chromebook laptop computers the district purchased for students in April.

“We had a huge Chromebook purchase last month that the board approved,” Powell said. “The cases that they carry those in aren’t included with that purchase. Those are something that our students need, so we had to do that purchase.”

The board also approved the purchase two additional computer servers for the district at a cost of $18,015.

The board approved a number of fundraiser requests, including a junior cheer booth at the Ice Cream Social to sell Bobcat apparel, the volleyball team selling discount cards, cheerleaders selling ads for the fall athletic program, Bright Futures selling T-shirts and a request from the Bobcat Baseball Alumni to hold a Ragball Home Run Derby.

In addition, the board approved an out-of-state travel request from Cassie Swofford, which would allow the senior cheerleaders to attend a cheerleading camp at Drury University in Springfield.

In other business, the board was informed of the district’s approval for a Professional Learning Communities grant through the Arkansas Department of Education.

“It’s a three-year, state-funded program worth up to $1.3 million,” Powell said, “We really had to work to get it. We had to go through a pretty rigorous application and interview process and we were one of the few schools that got chosen for it.”

The professional development program includes 50 days of on-site training and coaching for educators and another 20 days of off-site training.

“It’s going to end up being a lot of really quality training for our faculty,” Powell said.

After meeting in executive session, the board voted to approve a number of personnel matters, including accepting the resignations of Peyton Orellana as a high school special education paraprofessional; Joanna Coatney as a high school paraprofessional; elementary teachers Lesley Hopkins and Hannah Stone; middle school teachers Alex Spradlin, Dustie Swaim and Laura Hudgens; high school teachers Leah Bunch and Halstead Dixon; cross country and assistant track coach Andrew Killingsworth and Swofford, who resigned as senior cheerleading coach.

The board voted to hire Whitney Miller and Britney Williams as special education paraprofessionals, Scott Brown-Tesch as a custodian, Michelle Loveland as a cafeteria substitute, elementary teacher Karen Diaz, intermediate teachers Laken Whorton and Heather Martinez, middle school teacher Madison Tvrz, and high school teacher and coach Tate Ferguson.

The board also approved several transfers, including Alisha Ginn from fifth grade classroom to fifth grade ESL teacher, Jonathon Wood from ALE classroom to CBI classroom teacher, Tracy Holle from CBI teacher to ALE classroom teacher, Hunter Rivett from high school English to high school history, Cassie Swofford from intermediate counselor to high school counselor, Shawn Caldwell from assistant to head baseball coach, Cody Curtis from middle school teacher and coach to add assistant athletic director, Bryan Hutson from coach/assistant AD to coach/middle school Dean of Students, Tammi Davis from School Plant Services Director/Federal Programs to Curriculum Director/Federal Programs, Joey Curtis from high school assistant principal to high school assistant principal /school plant services director, and transferring the McKinney Vento-Homeless program from Tammi Davis to Mindy Hicks.

The board’s next meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, June 20, at the district administration building.