District school chief named

Micheal Stone has been named the new superintendent of the state-controlled Lee County School District, Arkansas Department of Education Secretary Johnny Key announced Thursday.

Stone, 45, a Marianna native who has been working for the North Little Rock School District, will begin his new job in Lee County on July 1. He replaces Willie Murdock, the outgoing superintendent who will be the new director of the Great Rivers Education Service Cooperative in east Arkansas.

The Lee County district has been state controlled since March 2019, initially due to inaccurate record-keeping on student credits toward graduation and later mismanagement of a portion of the district’s testing program which have since been fixed.

But other concerns — academic achievement and staff turnover — arose. The state Board of Education classified the Marianna-based district as needing “Level 5/intensive support,” the highest level of state support possible under the state’s accountability program, on May 13, 2021.

The classification was the result of low student achievement, high teacher and administrative turnover and the need for stronger instruction and a fully implemented curriculum deputy education commissioner Stacy Smith told the board in 2021.

Stone has been working as executive director of Student and Equity Services at the North Little Rock School District after having been the district’s director of federal programs. He has worked in teaching and principal positions at different schools in the district.

He has a Bachelor of Arts in education and a master’s degree in education administration from Harding University and a Specialist in Education certification from the University of Central Arkansas. He is working on a doctorate in education leadership at Arkansas Tech University.

His salary as Lee County superintendent will be $125,000 annually.