Superintendent, lawyers fired by county schools
Jerry Guess is out as superintendent of the Pulaski County Special School District, and Janice Warren is now the interim leader of the 12,000- student district for the coming school year, through June 30, 2018.
The district’s School Board voted 7- 0 at a special meeting Tuesday to immediately dismiss Guess, who has headed the district for six years. There was an identical vote to appoint Warren, who has been the district’s assistant superintendent of equity and pupil services and director of elementary
education.
Guess was under contract to work for the district through June 30, 2019, at an annual salary of $ 215,000. A provision in that contract entitles him to six more months of pay — a total of $ 107,500 — after his termination.
The board’s actions on Guess and Warren came after an initial 6- 1 vote to dismiss the Allen P. Roberts law firm of Camden as the district’s chief legal counsel on school desegregation and other district issues.
Sam Jones of the Mitchell Williams law firm in Little Rock will resume the lead counsel position he held prior to the Roberts firm becoming involved in 2011 in what is now the 34- yearold federal Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.
It was the approach that Guess and the legal team took in recent weeks toward achieving unitary status and an end to the desegregation case that resulted in Tuesday’s votes to replace Guess and the Roberts firm, principally Allen Roberts of Camden and Whitney Moore of Little Rock. School Board members referred to “backroom” and “side” deals of which they were not aware and of decisions in which they did not have input.
Guess had in recent days defended the work of the lawyers and said that the board’s dismissal of Roberts and Moore would be the same as terminating him.
Guess, 66, said after the board vote that his six years in the Pulaski Special district were the best of his career, including what he said were great years as a teacher and superintendent in the Camden-Fairview district.
“I’ve had a wonderful ride here. It’s been a great opportunity to work with some wonderful people, accomplish some dramatic things,” he said.
He said he didn’t know what he would do next. He did say that he believed the School Board — which was elected in November after the district was under state control for five years — was more interested in protecting the district’s boundaries than in achieving unitary status and being able to say that it treats students and adults fairly.
School Board President Linda Remele of Sherwood opened the special meeting Tuesday by saying that the board “sincerely wants unitary status and is working hard to achieve it.”
“We want to achieve it the right way,” she said, “not in backroom deals and not in a way that will break up this district to help another school district.”
That was a reference to a motion sent to federal court last week in a lawsuit in which Pulaski County Special is not a party and is focused on racial disparities in the neighboring Little Rock School District.
The parties in what has been known as the Doe case asked for a delay in a trial that was to start this week before U. S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. They told the judge that they wanted time to explore the possibility of school district boundary changes throughout Pulaski County as a remedy to many of the issues in the Little Rock case.
Those negotiations would have the potential to eliminate the Pulaski County Special district in favor of one district south of the Arkansas River and as many as four districts north of the river — North Little Rock, Jacksonville, Maumelle and Sherwood. Currently, the Pulaski County Special district almost surrounds the Little Rock district south of the river and encompasses the Maumelle and Sherwood communities north of the river.
Roberts and Moore committed in that Doe motion to participate in “immediate and intensive discussions” with attorneys for black students known as the Joshua intervenors to try to reach a settlement within 60 days on issues in which the Pulaski County Special district has yet to be declared unitary or in compliance with its desegregation Plan 2000. Those include disparities in the conditions of schools, student achievement and student discipline practices.
Because the county district’s boundary lines are protected by a 2014 agreement in the Pulaski County school desegregation case, a judge’s declaration of unitary status for the district is necessary to clear the way for the talks on boundary lines.
Remele said Tuesday that the district “is on the right track” in its operations in large part due to Guess. But she also said that the elected board “must be involved,” and the court filing last week “was not in our best interest. We do not have faith in the Allen Roberts law firm going forward.”
Remele later offered assurances that the schools will open on time and operate smoothly in the coming year, and that she hopes agreements on unitary status will be forthcoming.
Guess described for the board the accomplishments of the district since he was appointed in 2011 to head a then- 18,000- student system that was in fiscal distress. He said Roberts and Moore deserved a lot of the credit for the achievements.
The district was not only able to work its way out of dire financial straits in ways that survived legal challenges from employee unions, Guess said, but it also was able to achieve a multidistrict settlement in the long- running Pulaski County school desegregation case that preserved nearly $ 70 million a year in special state desegregation aid through the 2017- 18 school year.
The district was able to work through the detachment of a new Jacksonville/ North Pulaski School District with its division of employees and assets in ways that didn’t turn either district upside down financially, he said. He also noted the construction projects in the district, including the building of a new Mills High School in the southeast part of the district.
Guess choked up in talking about the Charles W. Donaldson scholarship program, a partnership between the district and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Philander Smith College. The initiative was designed to prepare high school students who would not necessarily plan to attend college to spend summers on the campuses and receive help with college entrance exams. He said “hundreds” of students have benefited from the partnership.
School Board member Mike Kemp, who is also the mayor of Shannon Hills, made the first motion of the night, which was to retain the Roberts firm, but that died for lack of a second.
Kemp questioned why the board would dismiss the firm.
“To get this close to the finish line and to change horses in the middle of the race” made no sense, he said.
He repeatedly said that the attorneys can make no deals without School Board approval. He pushed his board colleagues to allow the attorneys to proceed with the negotiations on unitary status to see what might be produced, possibly something innovative that no one has thought of before. The board can decide then whether to accept it or reject it, or even fire the attorneys then, he said.
Board member Eli Keller of Maumelle said the board is not assured of an opportunity to shoot down what might be negotiated. That’s because there have been agreements made in recent months in which the board was not involved.
“The actions in the district have proven you otherwise,” Keller told Kemp.
Keller in an interview on Monday pointed to correspondence between attorneys in the district and the Joshua intervenors that made it appear that Rep. John Walker, D- Little Rock, the lead attorney for the Joshua intervenors, was directing who in the district should be promoted, demoted, investigated or urged to retire. That included the promotion of Warren to the deputy superintendent’s post.
Board member Tina Ward, who represents the southeast part of the district, made the motion Tuesday to dismiss the attorneys. That was seconded by Alicia Gillen of the Maumelle area, who said that an “innovative solution” in the case is not breaking the school district apart.
Those voting for the motion were Remele, Ward, Gillen, Keller, Shelby Thomas of Sherwood and Brian Maune of the west part of the Pulaski County district.
Roberts and Moore were in the audience, along with Jones and Jay Bequette, another attorney who works with the district, primarily on personnel matters. Sen. Linda Chesterfield D- Little Rock, and Rep. Mark Lowery, R- Maumelle, were also there along with teacher and support staff union leaders Pam Fitzgiven and Emory Chesterfield and other district employees and former employees.
The School Board, which had discussed the attorneys in public went into a closed executive session for about an hour to discuss Guess’ contract in light of his statement that he would consider the attorneys’ dismissal as his dismissal. When they returned in open session, Maune made the motion to terminate Guess’ contract, which was seconded by Keller. There was no discussion.
The board then returned to the executive session to select an interim superintendent, returning to vote unanimously in favor of Warren.
Ironically, it was Guess’ recommendation to the board in June that Warren be named deputy superintendent that revealed a rift between the board and Guess. The board voted 4- 2 against the recommendation.
In an interview Tuesday, Remele said that the June vote was not about Warren, whom she praised, but about the Walker memo directing that Warren be promoted.
Warren, 60, worked for 33 years in the Crossett School District, the last 10 as superintendent, before retiring and moving to central Arkansas to be closer to her son and his family in Conway. Guess,
the former superintendent in the Camden- Fairview School District, pulled Warren out of retirement to be a top administrator overseeing elementary schools in the Pulaski County Special system.
Warren said her selection to be interim superintendent was a great honor. She also called the course of events Tuesday “very, very, very bittersweet.”
“We worked great together. We were a great team,” she said of her work with Guess. “My goal is to continue things he has already started because he has this district on a good trajectory.”
A graduate of Crossett High, Warren earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and a doctorate from Nova Southeastern University.
Jones, who will take over on the district’s legal affairs, said he would meet with Warren and others in the coming days to determine how to proceed in negotiations for unitary status.
The special School Board meeting came just one day after Guess sent an email to board members and school district administrators saying that he and his “lawyers of choice” have lost the confidence of the district’s School Board and he will leave the district’s employment if directed to do so by the board.