Siloam Springs School District ( SSSD ) Superintendent Jody Wiggins is in his fifth school year as superintendent , and has been with the school district 22 years .

“ I first came in as an athletic director and assistant principal at the high school ,” Wiggins said . “ I have slowly moved up the ranks . I ’ ve watched this school grow along with the community and feel very proud of the advances we have made , and intend to continue to make going forward .”

SSSD serves over 4,500 kindergarten through twelfth grade students , with an additional 150 children enrolled in the pre-K program . The size of the district is somewhere in-between the other school districts you will find in the Northwest Arkansas area , and Superintendent Wiggins likes to think of his district as just the right size .

“ We are not one of the big four in Northwest Arkansas that reside along the I-49 corridor ,” he said . “ But we are larger than the smaller , rural districts . We believe our students have the opportunities that the larger districts offer , while retaining the advantages of the smaller districts .”

One of those smalldistrict advantages is that all SSSD students have the same experience going through school , all of the first graders are in the same building with the same teachers . In the bigger school districts you have

neighborhood schools , so the experience varies from school to school . SSSD also has an alternative learning campus called Main Street Academy that serves grades nine through twelve . This is the kind of offering you might only find in a larger school district .

“ We ’ ve had a healthy , steady growth spurt over the past two decades ,” Wiggins said . “ As a result we have been able to build some new buildings that we are very proud of .”

SSSD has built and renovated multiple academic buildings over the last 20 years , including the high school .

“ Our high school is state of the art ,” Wiggins said . “ We have one of the strongest career and technical education programs in the state . I believe we are in the top three schools in the variety of career and technical courses we offer our students , including agriculture , industrial maintenance and a television and video program . So , we are a leader in the state in the area of vocational training . We also have a fantastic fine arts program and an extraordinary athletics program .”

The school district has also been able to build and renovate several athletic facilities over the last few years . SSSD partnered with John Brown University to completely renovate its track and field complex located on the Middle School campus . The district also constructed

a brand-new baseball , softball and tennis complex on the high school campus to go along with its already outstanding stadium and arena .

One of the unique amenities that is also much appreciated by the community of Siloam Springs is the fact that SSSD

has their own health clinic built into one of their schools . The clinic is specifically designed to serve the students , teachers and parents . The district partners with Community Clinic to offer the service .

“ We have a lot of parents who work the second or third shifts and they have difficulty checking a child out who might get sick during the day ,” Wiggins said . “ So , we can actually transport a student to our clinic to see a doctor during the day if they are in need so a parent doesn ’ t have to take off work to do it .

“ We also have Arisa Health / Ozark Guidance , an outside mental health provider , which has a presence in every one of our buildings to provide assistance to our students ,” Wiggins said . “ This is in addition to our school

counselors . We believe having a mental health professional available is an important service to provide and we are pretty proud to offer it in all of our locations .”

With the times being as they are , parents in all school districts are concerned about

safety . Superintendent Wiggins is well aware of this and has made it a priority to stay on the cutting edge of school safety precautions over the past several years .

“ We made renovations to our buildings to be sure they have things like single point access entrees and planters or barriers at the entrances ,” Wiggins said . “ We also partner with the city to provide seven resource officers who are actually Siloam Springs police officers . They are spread across our seven locations . This is a substantial investment on the part of the city and the district , but we believe it is well worth it .”