Robinson principals are placed on leave

Joe T. Robinson High School Principal Jay Pickering and Assistant Principal Kristi McIntosh have been placed on paid leave for publicly undisclosed reasons by Pulaski County Special School District leaders.

Justin Luttrell, the district’s director of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, and blending learning, has been named interim principal of the high school.

Michelle Camp, assistant principal of Sylvan Hills Junior High, has been reassigned to an interim assistant principal at Robinson High.

Jessica Duff, a spokesperson for the district, confirmed that Pickering and McIntosh were suspended with pay as of Tuesday, but Duff declined to elaborate on the reasons, calling the matter a personnel issue.

The suspensions come in a month where an 18-yearold Robinson High student was taken into police custody March 1 after campus security found a weapon in his backpack. Additionally, this week, Little Rock police have been assisting with security at Robinson High as the result of a social media post that appeared to threaten violence at the school.

The suspension of the two Robinson administrators also come in a week that the Pulaski County Special School Board voted 6-0 early Wednesday morning — after a nearly sixhour hearing — to accept Superintendent Charles McNulty’s recommendation that former Mills University Studies High Principal Teresa Moka’s contract with the district be terminated.

A former assistant principal at Mills, Moka had been named campus principal last summer at an annual salary of $120,443. Damian Patterson is now serving in the interim leader role at Mills.

Both Pickering and McIntosh are long-time educators, each with more than two decades of experience.

Pickering, whose annual salary is $126,044, is in his fourth year as principal at Robinson. He previously was principal at Pinnacle View Middle School in the Little Rock School District and at Bryant High School before that.

McIntosh, a native of McGehee and also in her fourth year at Robinson High, previously worked in Memphis and later for the Arkansas Department of Education as a school improvement and standards support specialist. Her annual salary is listed in Pulaski Special district records as $103,106.

Efforts on Friday to reach Pickering and McIntosh by their school district email addresses were not successful.