Board approves 5 people for county school positions

The School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District met Monday to fill key jobs in Superintendent Charles McNulty’s new administration, including that of a deputy superintendent and an executive director of operations.

The 6 p.m. special meeting on the administrative hires came shortly after four current and former district employees filed a federal lawsuit against district leaders — including School Board members — over staffing decisions made earlier this year that resulted either in the elimination of their jobs or cuts in their work years and salaries.

The School Board cast a single 4-1 vote on the slate of recommended candidates for the five positions.

Alesia D. Smith, most recently employed in the Pine Bluff School District, is the selection for deputy superintendent for learning services in the 12,000-student Pulaski County Special district. That position was last held by Laura Bednar, who resigned from the district in 2016.

Smith has been the Pine Bluff School District’s school improvement officer from 2014 to the present. There she supervised more than 200 educators. She previously served as an elementary school principal, assistant principal and teacher in Cincinnati.

Smith has a bachelor’s degree from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, and a master’s degree in educational administration from Xavier University in Cincinnati. Smith was one of five finalists in the nation for the 2017 Escalante-Gradillas Prize for Exceptional Educators.

She is the author of Love,

Passion & Resilience: The Core of School Turnaround.

Curtis Johnson III, director of campus safety and government relations at Arkansas Baptist College, is the newly approved selection for the Pulaski County Special district’s executive director of operations job. That’s a position that has been vacant since Derek Scott resigned from the district in 2017.

Johnson has held his position at Arkansas Baptist College since 2006 with the exception for a stint in 2013-14 when he worked as chief of policy for Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was a military policeman in the Arkansas Army National Guard from 1985 to 1990.

Johnson has a 1992 bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and a master’s degree in business and security organization management from Webster University at Little Rock.

Also approved by the School Board on Monday were:

DarnallB. Bell, principal at the district’s Daisy Bates Elementary and formerly at Harris Elementary, to be director of federal programs, categorical state funding and professional development and special initiatives.

Leta Bobette Ray, who was the district’s coordinator of English and social studies, to be one of the district’s two new instructional strategists.

Laura Strickland to be an instructional strategist as well as coordinator of the district’s services for students with dyslexia. Strickland most recently served simultaneously as a school improvement specialist at Pine Bluff High and finance and federal programs officer in the Pine Bluff School District. She is also a former assistant principal at Little Rock School District’s McClellan High. She also served in various positions in the Lee County School District and what was at the time the Turrell School District that was absorbed into the Marion School District in 2010.

School Board member Tina Ward cast the only “no” vote on the selections. She questioned McNulty, the district’s superintendent since July 1, and Paul Brewer, the assistant superintendent for human resources, why the district was hiring Pine Bluff employees after laying off Pulaski County Special curriculum specialists earlier this year.

Brewer said the new positions were advertised and the people whose jobs were eliminated or reduced earlier this year did not apply for the available positions.

Brewer also said after the meeting that the salaries for the newly hired employees are based on educational level and years of experience and had not been finalized.

Board members casting a voice vote in favor of the hires were Shelby Thomas, Brian Maune, Eli Keller and Mike Kemp.

Board President Linda Remele and board member Alicia Gillen were absent.