When the Russellville Ready program becomes a requirement next year, it’s important for the district to enhance it so students “want to do the program and not just because it’s a requirement,” said Russellville Independent school board member Joe Sparks.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re growing the kids that need to be employment-ready into this program because there’s tremendous amount of worth in it for those kids, and it’s not just for a college-bound student,” he said.
Russellville Independent school board member Joe Sparks checks
off a box on the rubric scoring for one of the panel review presenters.
Sparks said when Superintendent Bart Flener brought the idea to Russellville, the school board supported it because they anticipate it being a requirement from the state.
The program, he said, gives students “the opportunity to learn to speak in front of people where it counts, basically, just for them, and it’s not like it is in the business world when you get up and make a speech in front of a group of people that may impact your future employment.”
As a second-year board member, Sparks said being on the panel was also a benefit for him.
“For me it was good because I haven’t had the interaction with the students as a board member for many years,” he said. “My son graduated from Russellville High School in 1997. My wife was an employee of Russellville High School in the guidance office for 17 years so I had been around the school system in that (capacity), but had not been around these students. And just to see the degree that our students have and desire to learn, desire to display what they’ve learned, is tremendous.”
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