Week 8: Making Every Mark Count

Happy Friday!

Thank you for another good week. Coming off homecoming and a professional development day, our buildings settled right back into the work, and that steady return to routine is what keeps us moving toward our three performance targets: continued academic growth, attendance at or above 93.5 percent, and improvement in behavior and school climate.

This week’s Wrap-up is about two kinds of careful counting. The first is our budget for 2026–2027, which the board approved at our last meeting. The second is our local Value-Added Measure (VAM) reports, which will reach teachers who do not receive a state score next week. Both ask the same question: are we using what we have, whether dollars or data, in the way that does the most good for students? Leveling-Up means answering that question with a plan, not a guess.

A Careful Budget for a Leaner Year

At our last meeting, the school board approved the district’s budget for 2026–2027. I want you to understand the main points of that plan, because it shapes the decisions we make in every building this year.

The short version is that we expect less money this year and have planned for it. Our operating fund is projected to bring in about $18.15 million, roughly $1 million less than we received last year. Most of that drop comes from lower state aid, which is tied directly to enrollment. When we serve fewer students, the state sends us fewer dollars, and our enrollment has declined. We also expect less from investment earnings. Local property taxes are expected to rise a little, which helps, but not enough to cover the gap.

We did not respond with cuts across the board. Combined teacher salary and operating spending is budgeted at about $17.4 million, down only about 1.3 percent from last year, which is primarily due to us not having to pay for health insurance. The state used to send us that money on a per-pupil basis, and we would just send it back to the Employee Benefits Division. Now, the department will pay EBD directly.

The reductions we are making are spread across student support services, facilities, career education, and administration, including central office and building administration. At the same time, the budget puts more money where students need it. Special education rises by about $241,000 to cover therapy services for our students. Federal law also requires us to meet maintenance of effort, which means we must keep up our spending on special education from one year to the next. Transportation rises by about $116,000 so we can buy new buses we badly need. Twenty-three of our buses are more than ten years old. Regular classroom instruction is nearly level with last year, and the budget for classroom supplies and materials actually goes up. Protecting what happens in the classroom was the priority, and the budget shows it. We will soon be sending out specific budgets to those who manage them so each department is aware of its amount.

The outlook is steady. Our local revenue has grown over the past several years, and as long as that continues, we will be in good shape. Still, good shape depends on good habits, so I am asking each of you to help. Plan your purchases ahead of time, share resources across classrooms and buildings when you can, and bring essential student and classroom needs to your supervisor early rather than at the last minute. A need we know about in October is much easier to meet than one we hear about in April.

None of this changes our goals. Our students are still counting on growth in the classroom, steady attendance, and a positive school climate, and this budget is built to support all three. Spending carefully now is part of Leveling-Up, because it protects the programs and people our students depend on for the years ahead.

How Our Local VAM Scores Are Built

The state released student growth scores on September 17th, and those scores are what make our local calculations possible. Using them, local Value-Added Measure (VAM) reports will be ready next week for teachers who do not receive a state VAM score. Teachers in tested courses will receive their state VAM scores on November 5th. Before the local reports reach you, I want to repeat the process that I explained back in August as to how they were built.

This week, I have been organizing our local VAM reports and updating a district spreadsheet that tracks teacher results from year to year. The process matches the students on each teacher’s roster with their available ATLAS growth scores using student ID numbers. It then applies our highly mobile student exclusions and calculates each local VAM score using the district’s established formula. Two safeguards matter here. Missing growth data are not counted as zero, so a student without a score does not lower your result. Any case that needs clarification stays pending until it has been reviewed.

AI has helped with the time-consuming parts of this work: matching records, organizing calculations, and preparing reports for principal–teacher discussions. It has also helped with one of the most important decisions in the process, which is deciding which ATLAS test fits each course. Many of our courses are not tested directly, so for each one, AI compares the course content and standards with what each ATLAS test measures in ELA, mathematics, and science, then recommends the closest match. A course built around measurement and calculation may line up best with mathematics, while one built around reading and writing may line up best with ELA. I review every recommendation before it is used, so the final decision is still made by a person who knows our courses.

Each report includes supporting audit information, so your results can be checked rather than simply accepted. The tracking spreadsheet keeps historical scores and will calculate a three-year average once three complete years of data are available. Over time, that average will tell us more than any single year can.

Student privacy is a priority throughout this process. Source files that contained student names have been modified to only use state ID numbers. Any future data submissions should contain student ID numbers only, so you will have to look at rosters to know which students are and are not included. These reports are meant to help us look at growth over time, ask useful questions, and find ways to support both teachers and students. When you sit down with your principal to go over your report, that is the conversation I hope you will have.

More Time for Merit Pay Intent Forms

Once you have your local results, you should have time to look at them before you commit to a plan for the year. I am extending the Merit Pay Intent Declaration Form deadline by one week. Completed forms are now due to your building principal by 4:00 p.m. on Friday, October 9, 2026.

That extra week is time to make your plan stronger, not just time to finish it. The strongest intent forms show frequent, embedded instruction tied to English Language Arts, mathematics, science, Algebra I, Geometry, or Biology. A single enrichment activity tied loosely to those areas does not count. Embedded means the skills show up again and again in the regular work of your class. A strong plan shows students doing that work week after week, so the growth can be measured.

The best place to start is a conversation with the core content teachers in your building. Ask them which standards their students struggle with most and which ones fit naturally into your content. For example, a welding or mechanics class can teach measurement, ratios, and the geometry of a project. A physical education class can collect data and graph it. Music can use fractions and patterns. An art class can teach proportion and scale. Social Studies and history can focus on close reading and document analysis. A business or FACS course can have students read technical writing closely and write to explain what they did. When your plan uses the same standards and vocabulary the core teacher is using, students practice the same skills in two places, and that is what speeds up their growth.

Then narrow your focus to the students who need it most. Our students still scoring at Levels 1 and 2 on ATLAS are where the most growth is possible, and they are the students our report card points us toward. Name those students or groups on your form. Plan for how you will reach them often. Then keep the evidence in the Educator Effectiveness System as you go, so you are not trying to rebuild it at the end of the year. Filing the form still declares intent and does not guarantee merit pay. A clear, focused plan built with your core teachers gives your work its best chance to show up in the data.

Closing Celebrations

Homecoming ended the right way. In front of a packed Bob Carver Bearcat Stadium, our Bearcats opened conference play with a 38–31 win over Waldron, and the crowd that showed up for the 1976 State Championship Team and our Homecoming Court got a game worth remembering. Tonight, the Bearcats are back at home against an unbeaten Booneville team with a 7:00 p.m. kickoff. Please come out and fill the stands again.

Last week, the University of Arkansas Office for Education Policy recognized our schools for high student growth. This week, it released a second set of awards called Beating the Odds. These awards recognize high-growth schools where at least two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Mena Middle School ranked fifth in the state for math growth among those schools and first in the Southwest region in both math and ELA growth. Louise Durham Elementary and Holly Harshman Elementary tied for second in the Southwest region for ELA growth. Growth like this does not come from easy circumstances. It comes from teachers who expect every student to learn and then make sure it happens.

Our Bearcat Golf team, fresh off its 4A Conference Championship and a Ladycat finishing in the state’s top 10, heads to the Boys’ 4A State Tournament in Harrison next week. Please keep them in your thoughts and cheer them on as they represent Mena on the state’s biggest stage.

Our other teams stayed busy on the road this week. In junior high football at Booneville, our junior Bearcats won a hard-fought game 15–8, and our seventh graders battled in a 14–0 loss. Both teams return home next Thursday to host Lamar. In tennis at Nashville, our Ladycats and Bearcats each won two of their four matches, with wins at the top singles and doubles spots and several players continuing to build winning records this season.

We also celebrate our newest inductees into the National Honor Society and the National English Honor Society. These students have earned recognition for their scholarship, character, and commitment, and that kind of achievement grows in classrooms where learning matters. Across our district, teachers are bringing meaningful, hands-on activities into their lessons and inviting guests from our community and from industry to show students how what they learn connects to life and work beyond school. Congratulations to our inductees and to the teachers and families who helped them get there.

October is Economic Education Month, and Economics Arkansas asks schools to help celebrate. Economists call economics the “science of decision-making,” and that fits: the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions a day, and teachers make about four decisions every minute of the instructional day. The goal is for our students to become informed decision-makers. Teachers can join free webinars, offered almost every day, and earn an hour of professional development credit plus a classroom resource. Details are on the EA Event Calendar. Students also have several competitions to choose from: the Youth Entrepreneurship Showcase for grades 5–8, the Picturing Economics art competition for grades K–12 with entries due December 18, and Lights, Camera, Save!, a video contest for ages 13–18 that runs through local banks.

This week in Mena Morphology Matters, our students studied lingua, meaning language or tongue. Next week’s root is sign, meaning mark. Our youngest students will meet it through sign and signature, our third through fifth graders in signature, our middle school students in significant, and our high school students in designation, with designate and signal available across every grade band. The Bearcat Word Detective Challenge asks students what makes something significant. It is a fitting root for this week. A signature on an intent form puts a plan on record, and the growth that plan produces is what makes the work significant.

It was a good week of careful planning at Mena Public Schools.

At Mena Public Schools, our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Keep Leveling-Up, and have a great weekend!