School experiences sense of community

By Chris Goodin CONTRIBUTING WRITER

LITTLE ROCK — A new principal moving into a new community and new school system typically spends quite some time learning about those new surroundings. The culture of our communities and schools is fairly consistent. However, it is also very true that each individual community and school district has its unique values and traditions as well as its strengths and weaknesses. I’ve learned that students at Arkadelphia High School have multiple opportunities to develop their spirit of community and service.

With programs such as the Project Lead the Way Pre-Engineering program, which is profiled here today, our students are in a unique position to develop skills that will allow them to be of direct service to their communities. Another prime example of that is a current project of our Environmental and Spatial Technologies (EAST) program. Students in those classes are assisting community members in navigating the Medicare Web site and in determining which Medicare Part D plan will be of the most value and benefit to them. This is being done under the leadership of instructor Michael Calvert with cooperation from the Senior Health Division of the Arkansas Insurance Department. I really can’t say enough about the value of projects like this one.

Of course, true community service begins close to home. Since the time that our students and teachers returned to school in August, I have been privileged to work with many of them in their plans to implement projects designed to serve our own students. These have included plans to reinstate a recycling program at school, plans to help our students understand our handbook policies and procedures for our emergency drills, and plans to design a new nature trail for our biology classes. Students in our gifted and talented program go each year into our elementary schools to educate younger students on the dangers of drug, alcohol and tobacco use. All of these ideas and others have come from our students and our staff. It is very exciting to see our students and teachers focusing on service ideas like these.

As schools around the state struggle to maintain salary levels that will attract talented individuals into the profession, the question becomes how to continue to sustain and increase our community focus in all of our programs. Under the leadership of Dr. Virginia Anderson, who heads our district’s Workforce Education program, we are planning to offer a new class, which will introduce students to teaching as a profession. This course will mirror the Introduction to Teaching courses taught at most universities, and students who successfully complete the course will be eligible for concurrent credit at the university level. Of course, the goal is that many of those students, after finishing college, will return to our community to teach. Though this is still in the planning stages, we are very excited about the possibilities this holds for the future of our school and for our students.

As I have observed and absorbed as much as I can about Arkadelphia High School, our city and Clark County over the past few months, perhaps what has impressed me most is the very real sense of community that I see everywhere I go. There are more examples than I can cite here, but this sense is reflected in the service focus of our school. To my knowledge there has never been an organized effort to create this focus — it simply exists on its own. That fact speaks volumes about the quality of our school, community and students.

(Chris Goodin is principal at Arkadelphia High School.)

Tri-Lakes, Pages 58 on 01/01/2009