The Gravette School Board met this past Monday. The meeting opened welcoming Jessica Pike to the school board. She recently won the election for Position 1. Mrs. Pike is a district mother with 14 years of teaching experience. Mr. Gravette thanked her and all who ran this election season. The board received updates on academic programs from Gravette High School covering the freshman class success rate and the current number of seniors on track to graduate. The high school currently has a projected graduation rate of 99%! Way to go GHS!
The dry winter continues to provide Crossland Construction with optimal conditions to stay on track to open the new classrooms to start next school year. The walls of the building are going up and should start to be visible from the highway. Lots of work will be done over Spring Break to minimize student disruption. The district also is having 8th St. that runs between Gravette Upper Elementary and Gravette Middle paved over the break.
The district has recently selected Wagner Portrait Group out of Missouri to provide school pictures. They have served Joplin and Springfield Schools and are adding Gravette and Springdale. A major highlight of this change will be reducing the cost of pictures. Wagner offers base rate senior pictures as low as $80. For our school pictures, Wagner has packages that start as low as $10. This should represent a big drop in price from previous years.
Richard Carver presented the annual transportation report. It showed the district transporting over 700 students a day. We currently have 19 full time drivers. The district fleet typically covers 20,000-30,000 miles a month. Gravette is one of the largest districts in the state by square millage. With our position in the farthest northwest corner of Arkansas, many of our teams and clubs have the longest road trips in the state. We thank our drivers for their patience, dedication and sense of service they provide for our students and community. We couldn’t provide so many extracurricular opportunities and field trips without them. Thank you bus drivers!