MOUNTAIN PINE — The Mountain Pine School District is sprucing things up on campus with the first day of school less than a week away as workers finish painting walls and laying new floors at the high school.
Mountain Pine Superintendent Bobby Applegate said Monday that the new flooring has been his biggest project of the summer.
“We’ve got a week left and we’re closing a bunch of projects we worked on over the summer in our flats,” he said. “We did a big floor project. We put a new concrete-type floor on top with colors — red and white — and we put in a devil’s head. We’ve done a lot of painting and cleaning; we’re doing a lot of things.” .
He said the new pavement, which is being installed primarily at the front of the high school, will be most prominent at the building’s main entrance, near the administration office and the entrance to the gymnasium, but also passes through each corridor and some classrooms.
“He’s in high school right now … that’s all we could do this summer. That’s a lot of work to take it all out, grind it, sand it, and then put this special coat on top of it. . But it really look good. That floor is so old and all the tiles and everything were covered, so we decided to redo the whole section there,” he said.
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As teachers work in their classrooms this week and make final preparations for next week, an open house is scheduled for Thursday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. High school students and their families will meet new teachers and discover new information in the high school auditorium from 5:30 p.m. and visit the school at 7:00 p.m. Elementary students will join the hall of events at 6.30 pm and will tour the primary school. school at 7pm
In addition to free hot dogs and fries, there will also be bounce houses, a petting zoo and several community booths, including one for the school’s new after-school program. The district was awarded a $125,000 Nita M. Lowery 21st Century Community Learning Grant in the spring, which provides after-school care for K-6 students.
“We want to set up a booth for our 21st Century Grant that we got this year, which is a back-to-school program that we’re thinking is going to be a big project for us,” she said. “It’s more of an after-school treat, not just coming in and studying; it’s teaching kids different things. For example, we might not do that, but if someone wants to volunteer to dance, they could come and teach. our kids dancing.. . or how to knit or how to cook, or anything like that.”
Applegate said teachers have been attending professional development all summer for the program and it should begin around September first. He said he was very excited to start the program and noted that they actually used it in Prescott while he was there. Originally from Dardanelle, Applegate served as a principal in the Prescott School District before serving in Kirby and eventually Mountain Pine, replacing Bobby Gray in 2016 as superintendent.
“It was a big deal because the kids were able to do other things they never got to do before and learn other things besides schoolwork,” he said. “It’s not just tutoring and extracurricular work, but also teaching culture: how to set the table, how to have manners and things like that.”
He said the program should not be confused with the district’s after-school feeding program that will begin this fall.
“Before, we were giving all our kids breakfast, lunch and dinner before we went home. But we’re going back to that now that (we’re) post-Covid, I guess you’d say. We’re going back to feeding our kids and I don’t think which will start until October 1,” he said.
The Mountain Pine School District is classified as a Community Eligibility Provision District, which allows all students to eat for free. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, CEP is a free meal service option for school districts in low-income areas “that allows the nation’s poorest schools and districts to serve breakfasts and lunches at no cost to all enrolled students at no cost. home application collection.”
The school board is meeting today to make a decision about traffic flow on campus.
“We’re going to try something different this year with the way we drop the kids off,” he said. “In the past, we’ve had a little problem with parents driving the wrong way and almost hitting kids and stuff, so we’re going to try to make the traffic a little different this year and put everything in one direction.”
He said that once everything is finalized, he will give details on how the process will be carried out.
Mountain Pine School District Superintendent Bobby Applegate talks about new flooring and other new projects at the school Monday before the start of next week. – Photo by The Sentinel-Record’s Donald Cross
