State board will loosen reins on PBSD
LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday voted unanimously to move the Pine Bluff School District a step toward full local authority by installing a limited-authority board of seven appointed members who will govern the nine-campus district.
The 9-0 vote was taken after district officials gave a presentation on the progress of the district since it was taken over by the Arkansas Department of Education in 2018. Upon completion of the roll-call vote, the news was met with cheers and applause from PBSD supporters in attendance, many of them longtime educators.
“Oh, I think this is a victory for the school district, absolutely,” said Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner of the state Education Department’s Division of Elementary and Secondary Education. “I think this is what the community has been wanting. I think this is what the school district has been working toward. Absolutely, a victory.”
Trammell Howell, the PBSD parent-teacher organization president, shed tears of joy over the news.
“I am overjoyed that they see the progress,” Howell said. “They see the community is here. We are ready to continue to move forward. We are ready to make sure our scholars get everything they need from academics to social and emotional, and with us moving forward toward a new [high school] facility.”
White Hall resident Lisa Hunter, a recent addition to the state board and a Pine Bluff High School alumna, made a detailed motion to begin establishing the PBSD limited-authority board to operate under the director of state Education Commissioner Johnny Key and to invite members of the community interested in serving on the local board to submit an application on or before Oct. 23. Jeff Wood, a former Little Rock School Board member and another recent State Board addition, seconded.
“After giving it a lot of prayerful thought, it was easy,” Hunter said of the decision. “It’s the right thing for the community
at the right time, but I trust the community will come together and move the district forward.”
The limited-authority board will have a member representing each of the seven zones of the annexed PBSD.
“I’m hoping it will be in place by January,” Smith said.
Based on the PBSD’s request, a five-member committee will be formed to consider applications, conduct interviews and consult with Key, who will make the final appointments. The committee will consist of one State Board member appointed by board Chairwoman Ouida Newton of Poyen and four members appointed by Key.
The State Board had considered whether the local board should be elected rather than appointed so that board members could “survive the next election,” an idea that Wood supported. Wood spoke of a “constant resistance” to decisions an elected Little Rock board made before it was given full autonomy after years in state control, but Smith — who has served as an adviser to the PBSD — assured him that the issues in Pine Bluff were different.
“I can confidently say there are people in Pine Bluff who like what we do and there are people in Pine Bluff who don’t like what we do,” she said. “It’s not this battle, so it’s different. In the community meetings, I’m greeted. When Little Rock was going on, it was completely different.”
Smith turned back to three community members in the audience and asked if her statement was fair. They answered in the affirmative.
Rosalind Mouser, a Pine Bluff attorney and PBHS graduate, told board members in public comments the district wasn’t ready for an elected board.
“We live in America. We would prefer to have an elected board, but the state we’re in right now, we need an appointed board that would be able to move into the elected board, and then very soon, much sooner now than later, we’ll be able to elect our board and be on the forward path,” Mouser said.
The idea of a limited-authority board on the horizon also pleased PBSD Superintendent Barbara Warren, who said she pushed for an early timeline of the board’s installment.
“We’ve got big decisions that we need community feedback about,” Warren said. “It doesn’t need to be just general and broad and random. It needs to be people who are educated about the work and who are on board and can give that feedback.”
The big decisions Warren said the limited-authority board will face include where to build a new Pine Bluff high school, which Warren has said will unite the student bodies of Pine Bluff and Dollarway high schools. The common sentiment across the district is for the school to be remodeled at its current West 11th Avenue location to help rehabilitate the central location in the city.
Warren said board members will also have to consider a millage increase to cover the district’s portion of a cost-share agreement with the state Education Department toward the new high school, similar to a measure Watson Chapel School District voters approved in August. The PBSD operates with two millage rates, 41.7 for the pre-annexed PBSD zone and 40.8 for the former Dollarway School District.
The Education Department took over the Dollarway district and dissolved its school board in 2015 and voted five years later to annex it into the PBSD, which has been under Level 5 state control since 2018. Both districts were taken over because of fiscal and academic matters.
Under state law, the Education Department has five years from the time it takes over a district to restore it to full local control, annex it with another district, consolidate it with another to create a new district or reconstitute it. By statue, the PBSD has until June 30, 2024, the end of the fifth school year after the takeover, to be removed from fiscal distress.
Addressing the millage rates in the PBSD will be a crucial issue of the limited-authority board.
“One of the considerations we have to make is, if we know we’re going to come to our community for a bigger millage later, related to the building of our high school and upgrading of our other facilities, do we really make a big push now, or do we wait and put all of our efforts there?” Warren said.