What’s next for Dollarway is a hard decision for all

Not all 154 pages were filled with pain but many — too many — of them were. That was the length of the report produced by WestEd, a research company hired by the Arkansas Department of Education to do a deep dive into the academic and fiscal health of the Dollarway School District.

The report was presented Friday to the state Board of Education— which, as Education Commissioner Johnny Key said, has a lot of work to do in figuring out what will be the fate of the Dollarway district.

The board could return the district to local control, but the report’s findings and the conclusion of department officials indicate that the district, despite making progress, is not ready or able to be operated that way.

Other options include annexation, consolidation and reconstitution. If any of those three is the choice, the merger will include the Pine Bluff School District. That aspect has been dialed in for a while now. Both the Pine Bluff and Dollarway districts have been under state takeover, but each had its own top person. When Pine Bluff’s left for another job awhile back, the superintendent of the Dollarway district, Barbara Warren, was placed over the Pine Bluff district as well by design of state education officials.

The reason for that was because Pine Bluff is having some of the same serious issues as Dollarway: falling enrollment, an ever-worsening financial picture and high teacher turnover to name the most serious issues. Having one operator over the two districts seemed to fit with what was likely going to happen down the road, i.e., they would become one district. As WestEd said, the savings of putting the districts together would be significant.

An annexation would mean Dollarway would be absorbed into the Pine Bluff district. Consolidation would mean the two would be joined together to create a new combined district. And a reconstitution would mean the state board would create a unique governing apparatus for Dollarway.

It was good to hear from state board members and education staff that they understand the significant ramifications of a merger. Dollarway is, like many other school districts, a proud institution with years of tradition and name recognition and loyal alumni. WestEd reached out to some of those stakeholders and got their comments, which showed just how important the district is to that area.

If Dollarway is merged in some form or fashion with Pine Bluff, it is not the first time that the district has been involved in something like this. In 2006, the Altheimer School District merged with Dollarway, and the pain of that small town losing its school system is felt to this day.

The Altheimer district itself was the final stop to many consolidations across the river. Plum Bayou, Sherrill, Tucker, Wabbaseka — all of those districts fizzled out across the years. Toward the end, there was just Wabbaseka-Tucker and Altheimer, and then just Altheimer. And when Altheimer was taken into Dollarway, it just left a hole on the north side of the river.

Some of the consideration of putting the districts together is transportation, with ride times described as more than 100 minutes for some Dollarway students and 50 minutes for some of Pine Bluff’s. That’s not a final determination, of course, but those times did show up in one of the scenarios that WestEd put forth, and one board member said those times were awfully long.

Yes, the board has its work cut out for it. Again, the district has made strides, but not enough to forestall something more aggressive happening. And the board members are going to be busy with this decision for the next month. They are meeting on Dec. 1 to work on the issue in a more detailed fashion, and then on Dec. 10, they will decide.

Dollarway has been under state control for five years. That’s the maximum amount of time the state can run a district. After that, a decision has to be made as to what the next step is for that district. That’s a hard deadline and a hard decision.