Hot Springs School District

Last week, the HSSD hosted three spelling bees across the district for 1st - 8th grade students. HSSD Gifted and Talented Coordinator Mrs. Laura West coordinated the spelling bees, which are exciting competitions for students to improve their general spelling, vocabulary and language skills in a fun competition with their peers. First place winners Collin Mason, Aniyah Burgess and Warren Hedrick will advance to the Garland County Spelling Bee, to be held in January, 2019. HSSD Spelling Bees are held in coordination with official rules and scripts from the Scripps National Spelling Bee so that they are uniform with those hosted across the U.S. Thank you to all competitors and judges!

The HSWCHS NJROTC (Navy Junior Reserves Officer Training Corps) unit is the oldest NJROTC program in the state of Arkansas, established in March of 1969. NJROTC serves as a character and leadership development program nationwide for high school students. New instructors to Hot Springs include Lieutenant Commander Sean Garrett and Senior Chief David Patti, both of whom bring distinguished Navy careers with them to the classroom. Their focus is on building disciplined, service-minded students, who are prepared for leadership and careers in whatever fields they choose. Currently, 115 HSWCHS students are part of the program. The HSWCHS NJROTC Color Guard is requested to events across the community and central Arkansas area. In competitions, our teams were also among finalists last year in physical fitness and air rifle meets.

This week’s shout out goes to Carrington Holder, one of our seniors at HSWCHS, who was chosen as the student guest and speaker at Hot Springs Rotary. Rotarians seek student guests and speakers who are in the top percentage of their classes, involved in school activities, and community minded, and Carrington couldn’t have been a better candidate. Carrington represented us so well, and spoke about his 13 years as a Trojan. I also want to highlight our wonderful Hot Springs School District Board Members, three (Lonnel ‘Dino’ Lenox, Ann Hill, and Debbie Ugbade) of which received Boardmanship Awards from the Arkansas School Boards Association this week. Finally, we’ve had an anonymous shoutout submitted to highlight our excellent staff members who contributed to the Holiday Extravaganza event.

In a first annual STEM Day, Gardner STEM Magnet School dedicated an entire Friday to STEM-related activities and projects for kindergarten-5th grade students. The idea behind this effort was to create fun, diverse opportunities for students to explore STEM topics and activities. Partners from other schools within the HSSD and the community - including the Gardner PTO, HSWCHS EAST students, Henderson State University STEM Center, and Dawson Cooperative - were instrumental in creating a successful day of memorable activities and collaboration.