Guess lays out vision for millage campaign
Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series.
When Jerry Guess announced he’d step down as Watson Chapel School District superintendent come June 30, the 70-year-old laid out a vision for its stakeholders and his successor.
He said the district needs to establish a millage campaign to fund new facilities, including a new high school that would allow junior high students to move out of their 76-year-old campus.
Kristy Sanders, who directs the K-12 curriculum for Watson Chapel schools, works on the second floor of the building she once attended. She doesn’t expect Guess to do less in the remaining 5½ months of his tenure.
“He doesn’t want his name attached to unproductiveness,” Sanders said. “Even though he’s leaving, he’s continuing to do everything he’s always done — staying abreast of everything going on, advising, the whole nine yards. He’s doing it all, still, and I expect him to do that until the day he gets out.”
The Arkansas Department of Education’s facilities division, Guess said, requires school districts to submit a profile of its facilities entailing what is needed out of them. The ADE then determines how much “useful life” a building has or whether it should be replaced.
Guess said Watson Chapel submitted a master plan for its district following former Gov. Mike Huck
abee’s 2004 consolidation plan resulting from a lawsuit between the Lake View School District and the state, which was first filed in 1992 and claimed the state’s funding system
for public schools were inadequate and unequal.
“The junior high was occupied in 1945. That is not only older than you are; it’s older than I am,” Guess told a reporter. “It needs to be replaced.
So, the kids and the students in this district should be in a better facility. We sat down and said, ‘What should we plan to do?’
“I am a believer that in a school district, the high school should be the flagship of the district. What I suggested to the board was the district should build a new high school and move the junior high kids into the existing high school.”
State officials agree with the plan, which is updated every year as a “living document,” Guess said.
The matter now is whether the state will provide funding for the proposed construction. Guess said a decision is expected in May, and if the proposal is a go, Watson Chapel officials could most feasibly place a millage question on a ballot in November.
“The state has approved the request, but if the state provides the money, then the district will have available to it about an 80 percent share of construction of that facility. The state share is based on what’s called a wealth index, and it has to do with the relative wealth of every district in the state.”
Watson Chapel would have to come up with the remainder of the funding, which is why Guess mentioned during the Jan. 11 board meeting a millage increase is needed.
Watson Chapel’s millage rate stands at 34.1 mills, meaning taxpayers in the district pay $34.10 for every $1,000 assessed value of property. It is the lowest millage rate in Jefferson County.
“The students in that junior high deserve better,” he said. “The students in the high school deserve better. If this district can accomplish that, and I believe the district’s patrons will support this, then the high school kids will get a brand new building and the junior high kids will get a better building.”