Six people file for openings on North Little Rock School Board.

No one in the running to take seat in Pulaski County Zone 5

Six people filed by Wednesday’s deadline as candidates for election Nov. 6 to four positions on the North Little Rock School Board but no one filed for the single open board seat in the neighboring Pulaski County Special School District.

The weeklong filing period for school board candidates closed at noon in county clerks’ offices across the state.

In Pulaski County Special, no one filed for the Zone 5 seat now held by Alicia Gillen, who said she would not run for re-election because of family and work obligations. She works for the Maumelle Chamber of Commerce.

However, without any candidates running for the seat, state law dictates that Gillen as the current officeholder, will continue to hold the seat unless she submits her resignation.

At that point, the remaining members of the Pulaski County Special district board would appoint her successor.

The zone encompasses the north-central part of the district, an area between Maumelle and Sherwood.

Pulaski County Special district board terms are for five years and are unpaid.

In North Little Rock, there will be two contested elections and two seats that will be uncontested as there is only one candidate running in each.

The North Little Rock School Board election is coming at a time when the district is operating under the direction of an interim superintendent, Bobby Acklin, and faces the task of selecting a long-term leader in the coming weeks and months. The board voted earlier this year to buy out the final contract year of its previous superintendent, Kelly Rodgers.

Tracy Steele is unchallenged in his bid for re-election to the board from the district’s Zone 2. The former state senator and current director of the Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency, Steele has served one three-year term.

Former board member Rochelle D. Redus will be uncontested in her return to the board. She is running for the Zone 3 position held for the past 12 years by Darrell Montgomery. Montgomery is not running for re-election.

Redus was on the board from 2000 to 2006.

A disability services counselor at Pulaski Technical College, Redus is married to Reginald Redus, a campus supervisor at North Little Rock High School. She is the mother of a special-education teacher at the district’s Meadowpark Elementary and both of her two children are graduates of district schools, although her son has since passed away.

In Zone 5, incumbent Cindy Temple is challenged by Latoya Morgan.

Temple, vice president of SP Environmental, has held the seat only since late last year. She was selected by her board colleagues but actually appointed by the Pulaski County Quorum Court when the board failed to make the appointment within the time allotted by state law. As an appointee, Temple must run at the next election and win the election to keep her seat.

Morgan, an employee in the Pulaski County Special School District, could not be reached on her cellphone Wednesday night.

In Zone 7, newcomers Sarah Scanlon and Natalie Wankum are vying for the board seat now held by Luke King. King said last week that he was undecided about running for re-election and ultimately did not file as a candidate.

Scanlon is a consultant to individuals and organizations in state and out of state. She is married to Barbara L’Eplattenier, a faculty member at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and they have a daughter who attends a district elementary school.

Wankum is a North Little Rock native and an administrative assistant for a dental group. She and her husband, attorney Jess Wankum, have three children including two in district schools and one who has graduated.

North Little Rock School Board terms are for three years and are unpaid.