Education Board’s day spent on Little Rock

Arkansas Board of Education members adjourned their daylong-meeting Thursday after audience shouts of “No taxation without representation!” kept board members from voting on matters related to the state-controlled Little Rock School District.

The board plans to take up the Little Rock issues — particularly a proposed two-member expansion of the district’s seven-member Community Advisory Board and opening of the election of teachers to the district’s personnel policy committee — when the board reconvenes today.

Also to be discussed today are revisions to, or at least a process for revising, a draft memorandum on the conditions and/or limitations which Little Rock’s district would be returned to a locally elected school board.

Thursday’s meeting was held on a day teachers and support staff of the Little Rock Education Association held a one-day strike to demand the 23,000-student system be released from state management.

After picketing and rallying in front of the Arch Ford Education Building and the state Capitol, teachers and supporters filled the Education Board’s meeting to hear Little Rock district-related items — including options from Superintendent Mike Poore for redrawing school attendance zones before the 2021-22 school year.

Nearly 30 students, parents, teachers and lawmakers took about 3 minutes each to demand the board return local governance to the district and/ or reinstate collective bargaining rights to the employees union. The board in October ended collective bargaining rights in favor of personnel policy committees to advise the district on compensation and employee-related matters.

“I ask you to have a heart,” teacher Roy Vaughn said, adding the board provided no reasons why teachers or the employee union are a problem.

Parent Veronica McClane told the board she’s tired of and angry about the board’s failure to listen to the community.

“When you ask the community for feedback, actually listen to us,” she said.

Anika Whitfield, a longtime school district activist, called for a moratorium on plan to close, consolidate and reconfigure schools.

Jeff Wood, parent and chairman of the district’s Community Advisory Board, asked the board to support forming a traditional high school in the northwest part of the city.

The board assumed contro — dismissing the school board and placing the superintendent under state direction — in January 2015 because six of then 48 schools had chronically low test scores.

The board is obligated by law to consolidate, annex or reconstitute a district continuing to struggle academically after five years of state control. The board has been working for several months on a plan for reconstituting the district with eight F-graded schools and classified as being a Level 5 — in need of intensive support district.

In October, the board approved a plan for a November 2020 election of a school board with limits on its authority.

Education Department staffers late last month drafted a follow-up memorandum detailing what those board limits might be.

That draft proposed “community schools” developed and operated by a partnership of state, district and Little Rock representatives. The draft called for the district and state to develop criteria for the district’s exit from Level 5. And the draft proposed prohibiting reinstatement of collective bargaining and reserving the authority to hire and fire the superintendent.

Board member Chad Pekron of Bryant, the board’s newest member, said Thursday the terms of the draft are “not what I had envisioned last month.”

“When I made the motion to return to the board full control with an [memorandum of understanding], what I had in mind was a few big-picture items, but other than that it would be truly local control,” Pekron said. “I do think there are a lot of things in the [memorandum of understanding] that are good ideas, but I don’t think they are things we should be dictating.”

Pekron said he wanted an agreement including what he called “a few guardrails.” Those would limit the district’s ability to change superintendents, negotiate with the employees’ union or initiate litigation for as long as the district is classified as needing Level 5 support.

Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key noted since the first mention of making some of the district’s academically struggling schools into “community schools” that would be hubs of their neighborhoods, more information has become available on community school models.

Mike Hernandez, state superintendent for coordinated support and services, said there might be value in visiting some operating community models and requesting proposals from organizations on how to establish and operate community schools.

On another matter related to the Little Rock district, board member Kathy McFetridge of Springdale asked the personnel policy committee being formed in the Little Rock district — at the direction last month of the state board — be made up of one teacher from each of the more than 40 campuses.

District teachers are midway through electing eight teacher members to new advisory committee required by law for every district in the state. The Little Rock district didn’t have personnel policy committees for its teachers and support staffers until the Education Board directed last month they be established. That’s because the district recognized the Little Rock Education Association union as the exclusive contract bargaining agent for its employees.