New action from LRSD staff expected
‘Can’t say when or what,’ employee union chief says
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the 2015 state takeover of the Little Rock School District, employee union members met privately Monday to examine ways — including a job stoppage — to oppose recent district-related decisions.
“I think you can expect another action,” Teresa Gordon, president of the Little Rock Education Association, said in an interview after the 2½-hour meeting about the potential for a strike by teachers and other employees.
“I just can’t say when, or what,” said Gordon, who earlier led some employees on a one-day strike on Nov 14. Not all employees participated in the one-day strike and the district schools — staffed in part with substitutes and Arkansas Department of Education staff — stayed open to students.
Little Rock Education Association members — who lost their decades-old collective-bargaining rights with the district Oct. 31 — used Monday’s meeting at the First United Methodist Church to vent as well as talk with an association attorney about issues, Gordon said.
The meeting was not open to the public.
“We felt like everyone needed to come together and talk — especially given all the things that have happened in the district,” Gordon said.
Those recent decisions by the state and district include the notice this month to employees at four schools that they will be given nonrenewal notices in April for the 2020-21 school year if they can’t find other jobs within the district by that time.
Three of the schools are closing — J.A. Fair and McClellan high schools and Rockefeller Elementary. Hall High is becoming a special-program magnet school, prompting the state Board of Education to vote to require that all jobs at the school be declared vacant and opened to any interested applicants.
Gordon said those teachers have been hurt by the decision to hand out nonrenewal or termination notices when the district has the option of treating them as “displaced” until a job is available for them.
“At the end of the day, we work for the district not for Hall or McClellan or Fair,” she said. “But now if you work at a certain school you run the risk of losing your job. What’s that say to people, new people, who might want to come in and serve at those schools? Why would you choose to work at those schools. What does it say to
children at those schools — that they aren’t worthy.”
Asked if any votes were taken Monday night by the union members: “They voted a long time ago to give us the authority to do whatever we deem necessary,” said Gordon.
“They want action. They are mad,” she said. “And it’s not just the teachers at the four schools. It’s members districtwide who want action because what is being done to us is so disrespectful. It’s not like there is a line of people waiting out there to take our jobs.”
Gordon said the association is working with local attorneys and attorneys for the National Education Association on ways to challenge the district’s personnel actions.
The union meeting Monday took place on the night before the fifth anniversary of the state takeover. The district’s newly elected Personnel Policy Committee for certified staff is to meet for the first time at 4 p.m. today.
Teachers make up a majority of the Personnel Policy Committee along with some administrators. A personnel policy committee is required by state law for all school districts as a way for employees to give input to school boards on employee issues, including compensation.
The Little Rock School District was previously exempted from the personnel policy committee law because it had a collectaive-bargaining agreement with the employee union. The Arkansas Board of Education voted last fall to no longer recognize the Little Rock Education Association as the exclusive contract-bargaining agent for the employees.
The district’s new Personnel Policy Committee is made up of one elected member from each of the more than 40 campuses and special service teacher groups, such as the speech pathologists and psychological examiners.
There are, however, two schools in which there were tie votes for election and a discussion on how to resolve the tie votes is expected to take place at today’s session, according to information provided by the school district.
Most of the certified Personnel Policy Committee members belong to the Little Rock Education Association, Gordon said. The new members include the association’s immediate past president, Cathy Koehler, as well as the association’s current vice president, Brittani Brooks, and the treasurer, Lekeitha Austin.
Gordon said the association members will be joining in with Grassroots Arkansas in mourning the five-year anniversary of the Arkansas Board of Education’s vote to assume control of the 23,000-student school system because six of its then 48 schools were labeled as academically distressed for chronically-low student math and literacy scores on state exams. The school board was dismissed and the superintendent placed under state direction.
The state board has most recently voted to return the district to local governance — with some restrictions — after the November election of a nine-member school board. However, the district remains a Level 5 district in need of intensive support because eight of the district’s schools earned F grades from the state this past spring based on ACT Aspire exam results, as well as on student attendance, high school graduation rates and other factors.
Grassroots Arkansas, which has long opposed the Jan. 28, 2015, vote of the Arkansas Board of Education to take control of the district, is calling for a more “immediate, nostrings attached election” of a school board for the district. The organization is asking its supporters to wear black today and tie black ribbons around trees and mailboxes, and then meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Governor’s Mansion.