LR School District shuffles leaders as resignations, new positions open slots

Little Rock School District officials on Monday announced leadership changes that are planned for some of their schools.

The changes were prompted partly because of recent resignations and by the selection of personnel for top-level administrative slots.

Each of the staffing changes is subject to approval by state Education Secretary Johnny Key, who serves in lieu of a school board for the state-controlled Little Rock district.

Michael Anthony, who has been principal at J.A. Fair High, has been recommended for the principal’s job at Henderson Middle School. He would succeed Yaa Appiah-McNulty, who resigned to take a job as principal of Robinson Middle School in the Pulaski County Special School District.

“This is an exciting move, not only for Henderson Middle School, but also for the [Little Rock district’s] Community Blueprint Plan to have Henderson, Dodd and Romine become a new kindergarten-through-eighth-grade model,” district Superintendent Mike Poore said in the announcement about Anthony.

Plan, combining The which Community and calls repurposing for Blueprint closing, some district schools, will combine students from Dodd and Romine elementary schools and Henderson Middle on the Fair campus when it is closed as a high school at the end of the 2019-20 school year.

Fair and McClellan are both being closed as high schools, and students will be assigned to the new Southwest High School starting with the 202021 school year. At that time, Henderson, Dodd and Romine will be repurposed, or the properties will be sold.

“Mr. Anthony is an established leader who I know will work well with the current Dodd principal, Melinda Modica, to help create this transition,” Poore said.

An interim principal is still to be selected to lead Fair High School in the coming school year.

Other leadership changes include the proposed appointment of James Castleberry to be interim principal at Parkview Magnet High School.

Castleberry has been the student achievement intervention specialist at Parkview. He would fill the vacancy created by Poore’s proposed appointment of Parkview Principal Randy Rutherford to the job of executive director of secondary education for the school

district.

Eric Henderson, an assistant principal at Parkview, is being recommended for the role of acting principal at Mabelvale Middle School.

Mabelvale’s current principal, Rhonda Hall, is on paid leave, pending the outcome of an investigation into a personnel matter, said Pamela Smith, a district spokesman.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Hall was placed on leave in June after district leaders learned of video of a Jan. 30 altercation involving a 14-year-old student and Hall that differed from reports given to Little Rock police at the time of the altercation.

Additionally, the district has selected Keleica Glover to be interim principal at Mabelvale Elementary School, where she is now an assistant principal. She would fill a vacancy created by the proposed appointment of Mabelvale Principal Darian Smith to the job of executive director of elementary education.

“The ‘interim’ designation means we are temporarily filling the position until a search is completed to fill it on a permanent basis,” Smith said.” The ‘acting’ designation is more short-term, meaning we are temporarily filling the position while the person who normally occupies it is on leave.”