Education notebook
District’s tax rate only one on ballot
The Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District was the only Pulaski County school district to show up Tuesday on the ballot for the primary election.
The district had no School Board seats up for election this year, so all that was on the ballot in the community was the district’s existing 48.3-mill tax rate — and no change was proposed in that.
The tax rate drew more “no” votes than “yes” votes, with 2,480 voting “no” and 2,117 voting for it. Despite losing the vote, the district’s tax rate remains the same.
School districts are required by Article 14, Section 3, of the Arkansas Constitution to include their tax rates on the ballot. If no change in a tax rate is proposed, then districts ask voters to vote on a district’s current tax rate.
In that case, no matter what voters decide, the millage rate will remain at the level last approved by voters.
The Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special districts will have their annual elections in November, along with the general election. In addition to voting on candidates for any available school board seats, residents will vote then on the tax rates for their systems.
Arkansas law enables school districts to choose to hold elections in conjunction with the spring primary or the November general elections in years when there is a primary and general election.
State: 8 charters available to seek
Arkansas has eight charters available to award for new open-enrollment charter schools, creating a potential for a total of 34 charter schools or charter systems if all available charters are issued, state education leaders announced last week.
State law requires the state education commissioner to issue an annual memo stating what the number of available charters is for the next application cycle. That next cycle starts April 1 when letters of intent to apply for state charters are due. Those letters will be for proposed schools to open in 2021-22.
The state has a soft cap on the number of its public but independently operated charter schools.
Arkansas Code Annotated 6-23-304 allows for an automatic increase of five in the number of schools each time the number of approved open-enrollment charters is within two of the existing cap. That cap reached a high of 34 in 2018.
Currently, there are 25 active, open-enrollment charters with one more to be opened in the 2020-21 school year, for a total of 26. That leaves eight charters available for applicants seeking approval for new schools for the 2021-22 school year.
Martin, Moss vie for School Board
Lauren Martin and Richard Moss applied by Friday’s night’s deadline to fill a vacancy on the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School Board.
The vacancy was created by the resignation last month of Marcia Dornblaser, a member of the seven-member board since 2015. She was reelected to a four-year term in 2019 as a representative of the district’s Zone 1.
In cases of board vacancies, the remaining members of a school board are authorized by state law to appoint a new member as long as the appointment is made in a set amount of time. The new member can serve until the next annual school board election, at which time the new member must run for election and win to be able to continue to serve.
Moss is a former appointed member to the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School Board in 2014-15 and vice president of the Jacksonville Education Foundation.
He has a Ph.D. in public policy from the University of Arkansas with a specialization in education policy. He is employed as director of STEM success at the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College.
Martin is the parent of two students in the district and has held different roles in the Parent Teacher Associations at the former Tolleson Elementary and at Bobby G. Lester Elementary. She has a bachelor’s degree in business marketing from the University of Central Arkansas.
The School Board will hold a special meeting for the purpose of interviewing candidates for appointment to the vacant seat at 6 p.m. Monday at Jacksonville High School in Room 114.