GF board votes to continue esports

Esports may be around for some time at Green Forest High School.

Earlier this year, the district board voted to add an esports team to the school’s extracurricular activities on a provisional basis. During its regular meeting on May 16, the board reviewed the program.

“One of the esports team ended up finishing third in the state,” said superintendent Matt Summers. “And the coach, Jon Taylor, was recommended for what they call a ‘super coach’ position. With that and the report from the sponsor, we had well over 40 percent of our kids in esports that aren’t involved in any other activities.”

The Arkansas Activities Association, which regulates all school-sponsored competitions, voted to establish an esports league in 2019, partnering with PlayVS, a California-based esports league that focuses solely on high schools.

According to the AAA, students must meet certain academic standards in order to participate, much like those who participate in sports such as football, baseball or basketball.

The board heard the initial proposal from Taylor, the school’s EAST instructor, during its December meeting and voted to approve it in January.

At the time, Summers said a big factor in how well the program would be received is how many students it attracts — more specifically, how many students who aren’t already involved in some extracurricular activity. “That was the process all along,” Summers said last week. “We’ve got plenty to do, but with this, we can reach kids that aren’t involved in anything. We know that attachment leads to better grades, less disciplinary measures, and all the good things that come with that. So that was our intent.”

After the review, the board voted unanimously to continue the program for the 2022-2023 school year.

The board also reviewed and approved prices for advertising on the district’s new scoreboards and scorer’s tables at the Grim Gym and the Rock Gym, which the board approved last month.

“I had the athletic director come back with an advertising piece and we brought that before the board,” Summers said. “These are the panels that sit on the bottom of the scoreboards in the Grim Gym — there’s two on each scoreboard for a total of four — and in the Rock Gym, there’s two just on the one scoreboard.”

Summers said the district plans to give current advertisers first crack at the spaces before offering them to the wider community.

“We’re also looking at and considering doing a scorer’s table that would have the digital on each side with the logo in the middle,” Summers said. “We’ll be bringing that back in June. You can have advertisers on a scroll, every 30 seconds or every minute, however we choose

“We’re just looking at some ways to have a little bit of a generation of income to help offset the cost of those items.”

The board also voted to change its policy on free and reduced lunches.

“For the last couple of years, there’s been a waiver and all students have eaten free,” Summers said. “We’re going back, we believe, to the way it was before, where if a student qualifies for free lunch, then that’s free, and if they qualify for a reduced lunch, then it’s at the reduced cost. Students that don’t qualify would pay the full cost.”

Summers said that in the past — especially before the COVID-19 pandemic —the school district picked up the cost for the reduced lunches, making them essentially free for those students.

“Our district has always been ‘free and free,’ not ‘free and reduced,’ ” Summers said. “We’re getting out in front of that a little bit and we haven’t set our lunch prices for next year.”

The board also approved the purchase of approximately 1,700 Chromebook laptops for students, paid for through two separate programs.

The first — 280 laptops for $95,561.20 — was funded by Enhanced Student Achievement funds, while the second — 1,420 laptops for approximately $355,000 — would be paid for in part by money from the Emergency Connectivity Fund.

Summers said the larger purchase would cost the school approximately $11,250.

“We’re waiting to see if we’re approved for that. If we’re not 100-percent approved. If we don’t get any money, we don’t pay any money. But if we are 100-percent approved, that’d be the maximum of what we would pay.”

After meeting in executive session, the board approved a number of personnel changes, including accepting resignations or retirements from

Melissa Stimson, Emily Yang, Crystal Fancher, Charisse Matzenbacher, Skylar Fowler, Amanda Pearce, Dylan Stone, Tyler Loretz, and Millie Collins.

The board approved the transfer Lauren Cockrell to seventh grade literacy, Sherri Glassell to tech instructional facilitator, Vanessa Humbard to 11th grade English, Tony Hafner to high school resource teacher, Casey Wade to elementary special education teacher and Nancy Forshee to ELL Newcomer teacher, and approved the hiring of Lily Scott as ELL paraprofessional, Payton Youngblood as a kindergarten teacher, Colbey Lawyer as head band director and Corynn Wells as a paraprofessional and senior cheerleading coach.

The board’s next meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m. Monday, June 20, at the high school media center.