The Arkansas Pygmalion Commission was born from deep and abiding frustrations about children dropping out of school and the problems in their lives. It had been estimated that 10% of students enrolled in public schools caused 90% of the problems within schools. In answer to these frustrations, a series of hearings of a sub-committee of the education committee were held at the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock. These hearings began in 1992 and preceded the 1993 regular session of the 79th General Assembly of the Arkansas Legislature.  I chaired the committee, and among those invited to give testimony about youth falling through the education system were Ann Burns Smith, principal of the Jonesboro Alternative School and John Davidson, principal of Fayetteville's Vocational Education/Alternative School. 

Because the children who were being discussed had so many varying problems to contend with---from learning problems to health, family and environment obstacles, a number of other professionals were invited to give testimony. These included learning, health, and social services; counselors; juvenile justice and the courts; and many educators with different responsibilities in the school districts. The testimony had rays of hope that many students could, with concerted effort,  be kept from dropping out of school and in turn, change their lives for generations. From the hearings came proposed legislation, House Bill 2121. The bill proposed a commission that brought together educators, health, social service, and juvenile justice professionals who had given testimony to the committee.

There were eight sponsors of the bill including myself: Pollan, Northcutt, King, McGinnis, Baker, Argue and Roberts. The bill became Act 1288 of 1993 after Governor Jim Guy Tucker signed it into law. One of the interesting things early on about the commission was the name---Pygmalion. We chose the name from a well known education study that had experimented with helping teachers view their students differently. Those conducting the study went to classrooms, did some testing, and gave the teachers names of students whom they had identified as exceptional.The students were not exceptional, but because the teachers began to treat them that way, they became exceptional.

The Pygmalion Commission was founded on the belief that concentrating help on a small amount of students with outsize problems would pay huge benefits for the students, the schools, and society. I am exceptionally proud of the many people who have been on the Arkansas Pygmalion Commission though the years, and the contributions that have been made by them  resulting in better teaching, better schools, and students who are helped to survive in this ever-changing world. I am grateful for the school districts which have been in the forefront of helping EVERY child succeed in school.  

Former State Representative Carolyn Pollan

  Fort Smith, Arkansas

 

Ann Smith: Arkansas ALE Pioneer

Ann Burns Smith was a pioneer in alternative education in Jonesboro. The Jonesboro native who was born at St. Bernards was a 1945 graduate of Jonesboro High School who wove threads of education into her life’s work.
Mrs. Smith never took the traditional route in education, graduating from high school a year early, going away to college at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, attending Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, and graduating from the University of Arkansas, where she enjoyed studying drama, but majored in history. “I didn’t take a single education hour there,” she said. She graduated from U of A in 1949.
Ann Burns married Dick Smith that year, and the couple lived in Stuttgart for five years before returning to Jonesboro. For many years, Mrs. Smith worked with her husband as bookkeeper in the family business – Smith Feed Mill, which was located near the present site of Riceland Foods in Jonesboro. The Smiths had two sons, Mike, of Jonesboro, and Rick, of Little Rock, and a granddaughter, Roseann Claire Smith.
It was not until mid-life that Mrs. Smith re-entered the arena of education. After teaching at Jonesboro’s North School and substituting at the high school, she realized that she enjoyed working in secondary education. After substituting for a year, she said she was offered a half-day job teaching English at MacArthur Junior High School in Jonesboro. “I loved MacArthur,” she said. “I was so good, they wanted me to stay all day,” she joked.
Mr. Roy Croom was principal at the school, where Mrs. Smith taught social studies and English. “The English was called Achievement Language Arts,” she said. “Part of it was teaching reading,” she explained. “The reading teachers were very helpful to me.”
It was about this time that Mrs. Smith saw an article in “The Jonesboro Sun” regarding a new doctor in town who was trained in working with students with learning disabilities. “The ad said to contact Dr. David Loe,” she said. And she did. “I took every class he offered. I learned from him how to handle kids who have difficulty with learning.”
Mrs. Smith received a Master’s Degree and 45 additional hours in special education. And she learned to love teaching because of Dr. Loe’s influence on her academic life. “I learned that those kids wanted to learn; that those kids wanted to behave; and that those kids wanted to get along with their parents.”
She discovered that the alternative school program, of which she was a part in the Jonesboro Public School system for 17 years, was built on a social work basis: “We excited the students; they were rewarded for good behavior; … they had to make up every hour that they cut class,” she said. She added that the school’s social workers went into the students’ homes, and she later came to value those home visits.
Mrs. Smith said Fayetteville was the only school district in the state to have an alternative education program ahead of Jonesboro. The local school was first housed at the site of the old Booker T. Washington School. “We had a wing in the school,” she said. “Charles Wilhite, who was the assistant superintendent, was charged with starting the school. Mary Vollman taught math and science there, and I taught English, social studies and the histories.” She recalled that Anne Lynn Henry was the school’s first social worker.
“When we started the school, we had 40 to 50 students,” she said, adding as the program grew, the students numbered about 125. The student body was comprised of junior high and high school students. “As the years went by, we were able to add more money into the program,” she said. “The teachers began to see results.”
Home visits from the school’s social workers were an important part of the alternative program. “I was interested in learning what was causing the kids to misbehave,” Mrs. Smith explained. “I learned to go into the homes, and whatever we found there, we dealt with it.”
At one time, the school received some funding through United Way. “Junior Auxiliary (of Jonesboro) was the first organization that volunteered for us,” said Mrs. Smith, who had also been a member of that organization. “Junior Auxiliary taught me so much and gave me a foundation for my work in the Alternative School,” she said. She later reiterated that the service organization and her church were both important influences in her life. She is now a member of Magnolia Road Baptist Church.
Mrs. Smith said she “slid into” becoming director of the Alternative School. “Our goal was to not push kids out of school,” she stated. “Our goal was to change their behavior to get them back into regular school where they could function with the other students on their grade level.”
She soon learned that many of the students needed vocational education to learn skills for their futures. She added a new aspect to her previous goal – she was determined to get the students into one-half day classes at the vocational school. Under the JTPA (Job Training Partnership Act) program, the government paid a certain amount, so that employers were able to hire a number of the alterative school students to work after school. “J.C. Penney was an example of an employer who hired a lot of our kids,” she said.

Rewards of working in the alternative school were multiple for Mrs. Smith. “I love to see the kids turn around, get their heads on straight and graduate,” she said. “Several years ago, I received a graduation invitation from one our boys. He had moved to Texas after graduation, had gone to college and was graduating from SMU. There are a lot of success stories out there.”
At a gathering upon the death of one of the students who didn’t conquer his addiction, a number of the former alternative school students told Mrs. Smith how much she meant to them. “I’ve certainly tried to keep in touch with as many of the students as possible.”
After leaving her position at the Jonesboro Alternative School, Mrs. Smith moved to the State Department of Education, where she was in charge of alternative education for four years. She also worked at the Arkansas Pygmalion Commission on Nontraditional Education. The commission was created to focus public attention as a clearing house for information regarding alternative learning environments. A goal was to ensure that needed changes are made in curriculum, instructional approaches, school climate and organization to improve educational outcomes for at-risk students.