Chief settles in at Jessieville schools

Superintendent hired from Texas meets staff, learns ropes

JESSIEVILLE — Ralph Carter, the new superintendent of the Jessieville School District in Garland County, has had a smooth transition into his new position.

Carter officially began at Jessieville on June 9, but he began to meet with the faculty and staff May 26. He said he tried to talk to every employee for at least 10 to 15 minutes.

“We’ve got a lot of good people here, a lot of good teachers, a lot of good things that we are going to build on and move forward,” Carter said. “We have great potential, I think.”

Carter and his wife, Susan, were on hand in January, when the board voted to offer him the position. They drove about six hours from Saratoga, Texas, to attend the meeting.

He and board President David Morrow signed his threeyear contract on the stage of the Performing Arts Center after the vote.

Jessieville received materials from 23 applicants. Ron Looper was hired in August as the interim superintendent. His tenure began Sept. 1 and ended June 8.

Carter was superintendent of West Hardin County Consolidated Independent School District for the past two years. The district’s enrollment is about two- thirds the size of Jessieville’s.

His entire career and most of his life have been spent in Texas. He began as a teacher and summer- school principal in Bryan and later became an assistant principal at the high school, which had an enrollment of about 3,500 students.

Carter was an elementary principal in Centerville, directed a special- education cooperative involving five school districts and was the high school principal in the West Hardin district before he became superintendent. He grew up in the Dallas- Fort Worth area.

The Carters now reside in Hot Springs Village.

Susan Carter retired as an educational diagnostician in Texas. The position is referred to as a psychological examiner in Arkansas.

Looper met with Ralph Carter several times. Carter said a learning curve has been required because much of the terminology differs between the two states, but nothing else has really surprised him so far.

“A lot of the programs and things like that are the same, but they just call it something different here,” Carter said.

Carter credited bookkeeper Sandy Davis and treasurer Patty Fischer with helping him through the transition and learning the new terminology.

“The business office is great,” Carter said. “I don’t think you could ask for two better ladies on the business end of it.”

His biggest surprise was learning he had to pay Social Security taxes.

“That was a shock,” Carter said. “I had forgotten, because in Texas you don’t pay Social Security. You pay retirement, so you don’t pay Social Security. If you don’t have teacher retirement, then you pay Social Security. You don’t ever pay both except for very few districts in Texas.”

Carter said the area and the culture remind him of Texas, except that Arkansas has hills and trees. The recent summer heat also has reminded him of Texas.

Fountain Lake Superintendent Darin Beckwith will be Carter’s mentor during a oneyear training program for new superintendents.

“He is a go- to kind of person,” Carter said. “If I’ve got like a budget question or I’ve got a finance issue or something where I’m not sure, then I can call him.”

Carter said Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators’ Executive Director Richard Abernathy and Assistant Executive Director Mike Mertens have also been helpful, as have fellow superintendents.

He first met with other Garland County administrators in May to discuss the most recent desegregation ruling. Carter feels that the local superintendents are a collaborative team, and he looks forward to future meetings.

“It is an opportunity to share, ask questions and learn from some of those guys that have been doing it a lot longer than I have,” Carter said. “I think they will be a good group.”

Carter said he has had productive meetings with the School Board and has no intentions of starting at Jessieville with his own agenda. The district hosted a community meeting last week with staff members, students and parents to begin the process of developing a vision, mission and a motto. He said all three groups were well represented.

“It was a positive beginning to create a more open environment for the community, to feel a part of what we are doing,” Carter said. “Honestly, I think that’s what the staff wants. They want to have a part in the decisions that are made. They want to have a part in the things that we do.”