District, city talk swap of property

Leader needed for NLR schools

North Little Rock School District administrators won’t be left hanging without office space in a proposed land swap of property between the district and the city of North Little Rock, the mayor’s chief of staff said Monday.

“We will allow the school district to stay in this building during the period of planning and construction, and for such time as it takes for the police department to move out of its current building and for you to move into that building or wherever you decide to move,” Danny Bradley assured School Board members at the board’s Monday work session.

Bradley made the promise at a session during which the board also discussed plans for replacing Superintendent Kelly Rodgers, who has said he will retire from the school system effective June 30. The vacancy is being advertised with an application deadline of April 16.

Leaders in the school district and the city have been talking since late 2017 about making an even exchange of the school system’s administration building on Poplar Street and the armory property next door for the city’s Police Department and courts buildings. Those city buildings on Pershing and Main streets are on the same block as North Little Rock High School.

The city wants to build a new municipal building on the land that is now home to the school district administration building and the armory.

North Little Rock School Board members last month tabled a vote on a proposed memorandum of understanding on the trade out of a belief that the city would need to demolish the district’s administration building to even begin constructing the new city buildings — well before the city would vacate its current buildings for use by the district.

That would leave school district administrators, including the superintendent, deputy superintendent and assorted directors with only the original part of the high school campus for offices — but that space would require costly renovations in excess of what School Board members have said is currently affordable.

Rodgers said that a complete renovation of the Ole Main portion of the high school would cost as much as $9 million.

“That’s off the plate,” he said.

School Board member Cindy Temple asked Bradley about the possible need to tear down the administration building to be able to build the new city building.

“In a perfect world, that would probably be the preferred way,” said Bradley, who also noted that as yet there is no architect or design for the new building. “”This is a partnership,” he said, “and we are not going to do that. From the very beginning we knew that there would need to be a transition period. Whatever assurances the board needs in writing, we’ll get that done.”

School Board member Luke King asked that the city assurances be included in the proposed memorandum for the board to act on later this month. Bradley agreed that would be done.

In regard to a search for a new superintendent, the school district has hired McPherson and Jacobson executive search firm at a cost of $4,000 to host up to three community forums, conduct focus groups of district employees and students, and do an online survey to identify the characteristics that North Little Rock community members would like to see in a new chief executive officer.

The dates and times will be announced in the coming days, Karli Saracini, the district’s director of human resources, said.