Importance of Technology in Education

The small rural school was almost left without a resource on the large scale in December, 2015, when the Webster County School District closed its only bookstore. However, this retailer found its way back in the starting line in 2017, becoming more than just a book seller. This establishment continues to be more than just a place for the buying of schoolbooks.

In the 2017-18 academic year, the South Webster School District and Walmart South Arkansas successfully partnered to establish the South Webster Business Academy (SBAA), which is a free-standing business school.

Teachers like Amanda Carver and John Sisson have had this semester to work on class scheduling and how to utilize some of the tools in the SBAA that will allow for more scheduling flexibility.

One thing we were going to lose was a second option to get a curriculum in,” Sisson said.We needed that; we couldn’t get that back so that was important. The thing we were going to lose in January was a resource for curriculum.

We are going to hire a teacher who is already qualified with a degree in business to be our teacher of that curriculum. We also have a grant from Walmart to take the SBAA’s classroom and use it for a middle school where the kids will be able to do business curriculum, have the class and have the resources that are provided to them so they won’t be missing a lot of math and science classes. We will also have some of those things for our third and fourth graders, as well as some of the grade levels that are going to follow.”

The South Webster Business Academy is housed in the elementary school and is designed to teach seventh through ninth graders. As the students progress through middle school, it will become a high school level business academy.