The teachers gathered Sept. 28 on a teacher’s inservice day and were informed that in six weeks, they needed to be prepared for The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) scholastic audit.
“We are going to do the best work we can, and we are going to have fun doing it,” said principal Danny Brackett. “Most schools have six months [to prepare]. We have six weeks. And we asked for it.”
The school district is funding the audit. A team from the ADE will be in the school Nov. 12-13 conducting the audit.
Any school classified as a focus school is being audited, if they have not already been through the process. The audit will consiste of three components: observation in the classroom, documentation of lesson plans and student information, and the interviews of students, teachers, and parents.
“The audit is for [ADE] to come in to give us an improvement plan,” said assistant principal Shannon Tisher. “There are no penalties, no repercussions. It’s to see what we are already doing and to see what we need to do better.”
The faculty has been preparing “professional learning binders” school wide, beginning with the lead teachers. These binders are not just for the audit, but for all teachers to have the information readily available.
“I have been double checking information I have on my students and lesson planning,” said lead science teacher Leslie Pitman. “I’m making sure all of the information is available.”
The documentation step has been the most taxing part of the preparation for each department. Some departments have different requirements as well.
“We have more documentation because of the geometry EOC test,” said math teacher Melissa Waits.
The science department has another specific difference in their documentation as well.
“We also have a certain number of labs we have to do,” said Mrs. Pitman. “It’s an additional section in the binder.”
All departments including the Career and Technical Education classes and Fine Art classes have to document everything they are doing in the classroom as well.
“We have to document also, but most of ours is in performance,” said Fine Arts lead teacher Randy Irwin. “We record musical performances, drama is filming, and art is the actual projects or a portfolio.”
According to the Arkansas Department of Education website, the audit will addressed areas to improve student learning. The goal is to decrease the gap between the Targeted Achievement Gap Group (TAGG) and Non-TAGG students. TAGG includes students who are at an economic disadvantage, who have English Learner status, or who have disabilities, and Non-TAGG students.
“This is not an audit for what you did well; it’s for what’s wrong,” said Mrs. Pitman. “It’s a pass/fail, cut and dry. We can say we’re doing lots of wonderful things, but if we can’t prove it, then we could be lying. It’s going to lay wide our deficiencies and give us a clear unbiased review.”