Ex-worker files suit over contract status

The Little Rock School District and Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key are defendants in a lawsuit filed last week in Pulaski County Circuit Court by Stephanie Walker- Hynes after Walker-Hynes’ employment contract was not renewed for the 2016-17 school year.

The case is assigned to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox.

Walker-Hynes, who started work in 1995 in the district’s food services department, was most recently assistant coordinator of the district’s adult education program when she received notice last spring from then-Superintendent Baker Kurrus that her position was being eliminated.

She appealed the resulting nonrenewal of her contract. A three-member panel appointed by Key — who acts in lieu of a school board in the state-controlled Little Rock district — held a hearing on the appeal in June.

The panel of Danny Knight, Kenneth Turner and Mary McClendon concluded that the adult education assistant coordinator’s job was not needed and did not exist before Walker -Hynes was assigned to it after a period in which she was on paid administrative leave from the food services department.

But the panel also said in its report to Key that it could not recommend that Walker-Hynes’ contract be nonrenewed.

“We would hope the commissioner would suggest to the superintendent that Ms. Walker-Hynes would better serve the district in her former position as coordinator of food services,” the report said. The panel’s report added that if there are problems with any employee in the food services department, the director should exercise the authority to document the problems.

Key however upheld the district administration’s recommendation for the nonrenewal of Walker-Hynes’ contract, resulting in her appeal to circuit court by her attorney Lawrence A. Walker.