John Morgan resigns from Parkers Chapel School Board

PARKERS CHAPEL — After several board actions, Parkers Chapel School Board member John Morgan resigned at the board’s meeting Monday night.

After an executive session, the board approved superintendent Michael White’s recommendation to rehire several classified staff members and administrators’ recommendations to rehire several licensed staff members. The board also hired Cara Midyett and Lauren Burkett as elementary school teachers. Lauren Burkett is Morgan’s daughter.

“Due to the upcoming hire, I need to resign effective immediately from the school board. I have a relative … so I will resign at this point,” Morgan said.

Morgan has served as board member since 2000, he said. The remaining board members unanimously and reluctantly accepted Morgan’s resignation.

Before going over the district’s bank statements and activity reports, the district superintendent said that three of the district’s bills were over $10,000.

“One of (the checks) was written to CADM Architecture for their architect fee on the current project. Another was written for $155,787 to Dayco Construction, as we start the process of paying for the current project going on now,” White said. “On page four we have a couple of bills to DCS who’s been installing our phone system, intercom and voice over (internet protocol).”

Parkers Chapel’s participation in concurrent and vocational classes at South Arkansas Community College has going and the district’s bill for the institution has doubled, district business manager Benita Jones said.

“We had a bill on the second page there $10,968 to SouthArk and that’s paying for some of our vocational courses. We have a large group of kids this year,” Jones said.

The district started last month with a little over $3 million and ended it at $2.82 million in the bank. Parkers Chapel has 797 students enrollment and with a projected growth of nine to 14 students, White said the district can expect “growth money” for at least 10 students.

The superintendent also gave board members an update on the district’s ongoing construction project which includes hallways connecting each campus, safe rooms and renovations on the schools’ cafeteria and auditorium.

“You can see the front of the stage area. Basically they laid the split-faced concrete that’s going to be on the inside of the auditorium,” he said. “You’ll see some frame work out there. They put up the two poles for the top safety room that will hold up the ceiling as well.”

White said that he think the metal frame work will start in a week from now and contractors won’t know how much they’re off schedule until they start putting the metal building up. The entire project was originally expected to be done by December 2017.

“We’re supposed to be able to walk down the hallway come next August to access from the high school to the cafeteria and all points in between. What that’s probably going to end up looking like (is) kind of like the old New York-style walkways. There will be some kind of framework that will protect us from whatever is still going on,” he said.

Board members considered several student transfers from Strong, Junction City and El Dorado, many of which were from current preschool students, elementary principal Carrie Burson said. The board approved six and tabled one student transfer request.

The school board also approved the 2017-2018 school calendar, licensed pay schedule and recommended policy updates from the Arkansas School Boards Association (ASBA).

The Parkers Chapel School Board’s next meeting is scheduled at 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 16 in the PCHS Technology Building.