ADE Briefs

The National Parks Foundation invites schools to register now for the free Electronic Field Trip – Desert Diversity: A BioBlitz at Saguaro National Park – which will air live on Friday, October 21st at 1:00pm ET and again at 4:00pm ET!  (10:00am and 1:00pm Tucson time).   The companion website for the EFT that includes lesson plans for classroom use and [...]

President Obama will deliver his third annual Back to School Speech on Wednesday, September 28, at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, D.C. In speaking directly to students in past years, the President has encouraged them to study hard and take responsibility for their education, urging them to set [...]

          ACC EMAIL FLYER-REVISED   Please click above to find details on the Arkansas Curriculum Conference (ACC) “Connecting the Common Core,” Nov. 3-4 at the Little Rock Statehouse Convention Center.

If you’ve made a difference through volunteering over the past year, you could win $1,000 and a fabulous trip to Washington, D.C. next May by applying for a Prudential Spirit of Community Award! Even more importantly, you could win recognition that might inspire other young people to follow your example. These prestigious awards, sponsored by Prudential [...]

Emily Alison Sullivan requested an evidentiary hearing before the SBE regarding the Professional Licensure Standards Board Ethics Subcommittee’s recommendation that the State Board place her standard license on probation for two years and assess a $75 fine for her violations of the Code of Ethics.  The Ethics Subcommittee held an evidentiary hearing and found that [...]

The SBE tabled a request for a provisional teaching license by a West Memphis man. The man has a 1996 drug conviction which makes him ineligible for licensure. Board member Jim Cooper said that the SBE typically only grants such requests for waivers when an applicant provides documentation of a work history and from a [...]

Dr. Laura Bednar, assistant commissioner for learning services, told the SBE that the ADE will help host a Common Core summit for districts and community members on Oct. 11 in Little Rock.

Tommie Sue Anthony  of AAIMS shared good news with the SBE about increases in AP scores for Arkansas students. Qualifying scores on AP tests among students in districts involved in AAIMS increased 72 percent from 2008 to 2011. Overall, scores for students throughout Arkansas increased 40 percent over the same period. Nationwide, the percentage increase [...]

During the commissioner’s report at the SBE meeting today, Arkansas Education Commissioner Dr. Tom Kimbrell said there are 13 schools that are very interested in instituting a New Tech school model. He said the goal of Gov. Mike Beebe’s STEM Works plan is to have 10 New Tech schools in place by the 2012-2013 school [...]

The State Board of Education is meeting tonight in a work session. A key discussion item centered on how to strengthen how the state categorizes districts in “academic distress.” Education Commissioner Dr. Tom Kimbrell told the board following a 90-minute discussion that the ADE would work on specific options for the board to consider during [...]