The Wynne School District will be sharing a “State of the District” letter with families this week.
Wynne Schools Superintendent Dr. Kenneth Moore said the letter will detail all of the steps the district has taken to rebuild following last year’s tornado.
“We are going to send home with every single student a letter this week. It’s kind of a ‘State of the District’ letter,” Dr. Moore said. “We’ve got a list of everything that’s happened since March 31 from grants to construction projects as well as timelines moving forward.
“We are not sitting around doing nothing,” he added. “The construction process is not as simple as I just pick up the phone, call, and say, ‘Hey, can you come build a school?’”
Dr. Moore said it is a lengthy process that requires both state and local approval. Dr. Moore said the district is hoping for an early start on the project to avoid weather delays later this year.
“March 1 was the deadline to turn in all of our future projects that are eligible to be a part of the partnership program with the state,” he said. “With that, the determination letters of that project being approved are not until on or after August 1. We’re really concerned about if we don’t get to start until after August 1, by the time that we bid that out and get all that done, we could be in September, potentially October, which weather you know how that goes. If we get weather and we get wet, that may back us up six months on construction.”
As noted, the letter being sent home to families also includes a time frame of when students will likely return to the high school campus.
“We’re looking to move kindergarten in would be the start of the 2026 school year, which when that happens ninth grade would shift down to junior high, the sixth grade would shift down to intermediate, and third grade would shift down to primary,” Dr. Moore said. “We would still have potentially six months on the high school. At that point, tenth through twelfth grade kids would stay at the temp site. … We would transition them in January of 2027.”
