Ex-state lawmaker is new superintendent

Herschel W. Cleveland of Paris, an attorney and former speaker of the Arkansas House of Representatives, will be the superintendent of the Western Yell County School District for the coming school year as a result of a waiver of state law approved Thursday.

The Arkansas Board of Education voted unanimously to grant the rare waiver of the requirement that a public school district superintendent hold a state-issued license to be a superintendent. The superintendent licensure waiver was granted only once before — to the Helena-West Helena School District.

Act 1240 of 2015 allows school districts to apply for and attain the same state waivers of rules and laws that have previously been granted to an open-enrollment charter school.

Cleveland, 73, was a threeterm legislator, from 1999 to 2005, at a time when the Legislature passed dozens of laws — many in a special legislative session in late 2003 and early 2004 — to correct deficiencies that caused the Arkansas Supreme Court to declare the state’s public school funding system as unconstitutional.

Tommy Fink, president of the Western Yell County School Board, said Cleveland’s appointment to the superintendent’s role was necessary as the district’s previous superintendent had left without giving the 350-student district adequate time to find a longterm replacement.

In addition to being a lawmaker, Cleveland has also served on the Arkansas Ethics Commission and worked as deputy director and then interim director of the Arkansas Department of Information Services.

Cleveland’s annual salary will be $90,000.