State board sets LR work session

The Arkansas Board of Education has scheduled a work session for 3 p.m. on Dec. 4 in the Arch Ford Education Building at 4 Capitol Mall in Little Rock.

The work session is a follow-up to the board’s Nov. 14 meeting in which its members asked for more time to discuss the possible terms of a memorandum of understanding under which the Little Rock School District would be returned to the management of a locally elected school board.

In October, the Education Board approved a plan for a November 2020 election to select a nine-member Little Rock district school board that would have limits on its authority.

Education Department staff members late last month drafted a follow-up memorandum of understanding that detailed what those board limits might be, as well as called for the establishment of “community schools” at one or more campuses.

The proposed limits on the elected school board has continued to draw opposition from district parents and educators, and at least one Education Board member has said publicly that he has concerns about the draft in its current form.