Green Forest board OKs purchase of house for preschool

By Rick Harvey

RHarvey@cherryroad.com

Another Green Forest School District preschool is on the horizon.

Matt Summers

At its Oct. 17 monthly meeting, the Green Forest School Board authorized superintendent Matt Summers to complete the purchase of a home at 605 Tommy Ratzlaff Ave., which will be renovated and eventually house the district’s third preschool.

The two-bedroom house, built in the 1950s, was a one-family home adjacent to Green Forest Elementary School.

“A gentleman and his wife raised a family there,” Summers said. “He recently passed away and the family wanted the school to have, but they didn’t know what our purposes would be for it.

“After some conversations I told them our first priority would be a preschool.”

Summers said he cleared the idea with the Ozark Unlimited Resources Cooperative Early Childhood Education Program, which facilitates the ABC Preschools, and learned there was a need for additional preschool space.

“The family wanted the school to have it and they didn’t want us to tear it down,” Summers said of the house, which is approximately 1,100 square feet and has two “shops” in the backyard. “ is too nice to tear down. It’s a brick building … it’s just meticulous, very well taken care of.

“It’s dated because of when it was built, but it’s just sparkling.”

Summers said the family recently had the property appraised for $155,000, which will be the price the school district will pay.

“The sellers were requesting the same price as the appraisal, which is what the school district has to meet, the fair market value,” Summers said. “In other words, we can’t overpay for a property using taxpayer funds … The appraised price is $155,000, which they agreed to. The family is also asking us to split 50/50 the closing costs.

“So, the board gave me as superintendent the ability to start that process and close the deal. We hope to close in November, and we will have to come in and remodel the bathroom and take out some existing interior walls to create enough space to have a 700-square-foot open room.”

Summers said he hopes the new preschool is open starting “the first of the year.”

ENROLLMENT UP

In other reports, Summers shared with the school board that the district’s Oct. 1 enrollment was 1,428, up 55 students from the 2021 numbers.

A growing community and larger kindergarten class are attributing to that, he said.

“We’re graduating classes each year in high school somewhere between 90 to 97 students and our kindergarten class is 115,” Summers said. “So, that’s part of the growth.

“We’re just growing overall, obviously, with the Tyson expansion to the plant here several years ago. The only thing that’s really slowing us down is available housing. As apartments, as duplexes and as houses are being built, they’re filling up.

“That’s going to be a continued trend, that we’ll continue to grow and grow.”

The enrollment numbers were part of the annual report to the public.

“It’s where we report about our enrollment, our funding, our test scores, the diversity of our school population and goals for the upcoming year,” Summers said. “That’s something each school district is required to do annually.”

Summers said the GFSD report would be posted to the school district’s website and Facebook page.

OTHER APPROVALS

In other board action, $14,000 was approved to purchase a new Spanish curriculum.

“It has been years since we had updated our Spanish curriculum,” Summer said. “We updated that with new textbooks and obviously the relevant and current components of the online part to go along with that.”

The board also approved a bid of $15,461.71 from Quality Assurance Roofing to repair a damaged roof to the “rock gym,” which is used for physical education classes and also a back-up practice facility for athletic teams.

It was the lowest of three bids received for the work, Summers said.

“The south side of the gym had storm damage with some ripped-off shingles,” he said. “Insurance is going to pay $9,100 towards the replacement.

“The total cost to the district will be $6,361.73.”

Additionally, the board approved the rewriting of the ELL, English as a Second Language, program.

“There are several rules, procedures and policy changes that were enacted at the state level for the 20222023 school year, so we had to change our program for that and needed board approval,” Summers said.

Summers said the board also approved the district paying $300 per employee for health insurance benefits based on a new law.

“Up until this moment, the district contribution has been $183.32 per employee,” Summers said. “Starting Jan. 1, that will be $300 per employee that the district contributes to their health insurance package.”

Summers said the district anticipated increases and the change won’t negatively impact the budget.

“We were under the understanding that there would be increases so we added a little to that when we made out the budget,” he said.

The employee portion of insurance costs isn’t increasing, Summers said.

“If an increase has to come, it’s better that the district has that,” he said.

PERSONNEL CHANGES

The board approved the resignations of Blaine Lawrence as a bus driver as of Oct. 31, Adam Richter as high school student council sponsor, Destinie Meadors as a special education paraprofessional and Kevin Garland as a tech as of Oct. 26.

Approvals were given to hire Alma Settles and Moo Da Wah as after-school tutors and Dana McCutcheon as high school student council sponsor.

Toni Welty, Yesica Hernandez and Sosalynna Laidren were hired as a special education paraprofessionals.