No extra contract year for NLR school chief

Board motion fails to get a second

The North Little Rock School Board on Thursday did not extend Superintendent Kelly Rodgers’ contract, leaving him two more years as its chief executive.

After a nearly 45- minute executive session, board member Taniesha Richardson-Wiley moved to extend Rodgers’ contract for an extra year, to give him a threeyear contract at the North Little Rock School District. But no other board member gave the motion a second. Two board members — Scott Teague and Tracy Steele — were absent.

Because Richardson- Wiley’s motion failed to garner a second, Rodgers’ contract was not renewed or extended, leaving him as leader of the 8,405- student district until June 30, 2019.

Arkansas’ public school district superintendents are permitted by law to have three- year contracts with their school districts. It is not unusual for school boards to extend a superintendent’s contract after the completion of each work year so the chief executive has the security of an ongoing threeyear contract. Failure by a board to annually extend the contract — absent some extenuating circumstances such as a superintendent’s

planned retirement — is typically viewed as a sign of board dissatisfaction with the chief executive officer.

The move came just after Rodgers presented a draft of the superintendent’s professional growth plan, a part of a pilot evaluation program started by the Arkansas School Boards Association. The voluntary program has a main goal of increasing student achievement, according to the association’s website.

Rodgers said after the vote Thursday that he didn’t foresee the outcome and didn’t know of any problems with the School Board. He said he will continue working on his growth plan, which seeks to increase districtwide student achievement on state exams by 10 percent, present a balanced budget reflecting the loss of $ 7.6 million in state desegregation aid, pursue alternative revenue sources and develop a three- to five- year strategic plan.

Rodgers, 60, is in his fourth year as superintendent of the district and earns $ 185,000 annually. When he was hired in 2013 to lead the North Little Rock system, he had been a superintendent for a total of 10 years in two Texas school districts.

During his tenure, Rodgers oversaw the completion of what started as a $ 265.5 million capital improvement program in which the district’s 19 campuses were reduced to 13 — nearly all of which have been built anew or extensively remodeled since May 2013. Only the building plans for North Little Rock Middle School have not been fully realized because of district’s inability, so far, to acquire state aid for the full project.

At the same time, the district has had to cut its operating costs to help pay for the building program. Complicating that was a January 2014 settlement

agreement in a long- running Pulaski County School desegregation lawsuit that will end state desegregation aid to the district after the 2017- 18 school year.

The district has cut staff positions, instituted a hiring freeze, offered early- retirement incentives, reduced transportation costs and taken other steps to afford the building program and offset the loss of desegregation money.

Most recently, Rodgers and his staff have shepherded the development of the School of Excellence, a charter school within North Little Rock High School. The program will offer pathways to careers through a combination of classroom, digital and hands- on project learning.

The School Board last extended Rodgers’ contract in

January 2016, with board member Dorothy Williams voting against it and member Darrell Montgomery absent. Luke King, Sandi Campbell, Steele, Teague and Ron Treat — who died later in the year and was replaced by Richardson- Wiley — voted in favor of the oneyear extension.

Montgomery, now the board’s president, had no further comment Thursday than: “It just died for lack of a second today.”

Williams said she did not second Richardson- Wiley’s vote because she wasn’t in favor of it. When asked why, Williams said, “Oh, no, that’s personnel.”

She added, “You know, tonight, he gave his professional growth plan, you remember? So you always look for people to grow.”