4 win NLR School Board seats
Election victories go to two incumbents, two new members
Voters in the North Little Rock School District elected two new board members and re-elected two incumbents Tuesday in the district’s first election held in conjunction with the November general election.
Incumbent Tracy Steele from the district’s Zone 2 and new member Rochelle Redus from Zone 3 won their seats in uncontested elections.
In the contested board races, Natalie Wankum defeated Sarah Scanlon in the race for Zone 7 on the board while incumbent Cindy Temple won over challenger LaToya Morgan for election from Zone 5.
“I’m just ready to get in there and be part of a team that helps turn these schools around,” Temple said late Tuesday. “I want us to really roll up the sleeves and get it done.”
Wankum said she wants to bring transparency and accountability to the school district and the School Board.
“We have a lot of shadiness going on and I want that nipped in the rear,” Wankum said.
With with all Pulaski County precincts reporting, unofficial results show:
Zone 5 Temple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,799 Morgan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882
Zone 7 Wankum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,693 Scanlon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,245
School Board terms in the district are for three years and are unpaid.
Tuesday’s School Board election was held in conjunction with the general election as the result of Act 910 of 2017. The act gave the state’s school districts the option of holding their yearly elections in either May or in November.
Gary Newton, a leading advocate for the legal change from September school elections to elections at the time of May primaries or especially the November general election, welcomed what he expected to be some record voter turnouts.
“Education is at the forefront of every other political race in the state,” Newton said. “It just makes sense that those who are charged with leading the largest local government entities in Arkansas are chosen when people actually vote.”
The election to fill four of seven North Little Rock School Board seats comes at a time of wholesale administrative changes in the 8,000-student system — largely brought on by the one-year buyout earlier this year of former Superintendent Kelly Rodgers’ contract and the dismissal of Deputy Superintendent Beth Shumate.
Temple, 58, is an accountant and vice president of SP Environmental. She was appointed to a vacant seat on the board late last year and was motivated to run for election in part because she has hired district graduates for her company who were ill-prepared.
Temple has called for a fiveyear strategic plan for raising student achievement, improving social interactions among students and ensuring the district’s financial health. She also called for the development of a board calendar of tasks to be done so that the board members have adequate time to address issues such as the annual budget and student handbooks.
Her challenger, Morgan, 37, is a library media specialist in a neighboring district. As an educator, Morgan said she has insight into the needs of both students and teachers. She said she wants to promote greater unity between the district and the community partners.
Wankum, 38, an administrative assistant for a dental group, said she ran for the board’s Zone 7 seat out of frustration with what she saw to be neglected opportunities to provide students with the services and support they need to succeed. She also said she feared district spending practices would push the district into a state takeover of the system.
Scanlon, 55, a political organizer and candidate coach, said in her campaign that she would work to ensure that schools identified by the state as underperforming get the resources — in terms of academic programs and employee salaries — that will allow them to excel.
Steele, 55, re-elected to a second term from the district’s Zone 2, is a former state senator and current director of the Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency.
Similarly, Redus was unchallenged in her bid to represent the district’s Zone 3. Redus, 54, will replace 12-year board member Darrell Montgomery who did not run for another term. Redus is a former member of the board, having held the seat from 2000 to 2006, prior to Montgomery.
Redus is a disability services counselor at Pulaski Technical College. Her husband Reginald Redus is a North Little Rock High campus supervisor and their daughter is a special education teacher at the district’s Meadow Park Elementary.
Also on the ballot was the district’s 48.3-mill tax rate.
Complete, unofficial results showed:
For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9,137 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,038
The Arkansas Constitution requires the tax rate to be on the ballot annually, even if there is no proposed change. The vote can be viewed as a measure of public sentiment on a district.