Education Notebook

School board OKs settlement

The North Little Rock School Board voted 6-0 last week to an $87,500 settlement of costs to the monitors of the district’s desegregation efforts in past years.

The agreement was negotiated by attorneys for the school district and the Joshua intervenors, who represent the district’s black students in a 30year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit.

The Joshua intervenors had the responsibility in that lawsuit to monitor the North Little Rock district's compliance with the school system's federal court approved desegregation plan. Attorneys for the group had initially asked U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. to order the district to pay a larger amount over the district’s objection.

The North Little Rock School District was declared unitary, or desegregated, by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis in December 2011 and is no longer subject to outside monitoring in the desegregation case.

Board seeks more minority vendors

The Little Rock School Board, which late last year approved a policy to promote the hiring of vendors who are women and/or are members of minority groups, has appointed a committee to offer advice to the district on the issue.

School Board member Michael Nellums will be the board’s representative on the panel. Other members are Charles Cervantes, no affiliation given; Linda Nelson, the regional director for the U.S. Small Business Administration; Russell Hampton, loan officer with ACCION; Bob East, owner of East-Harding Construction; and Mia McNeal, president of the Arkansas Mississippi Minority Supplier Development Council.

The School Board approved a policy in September calling for the district to attempt to spend 30 percent of its purchasing funds with businesses owned by members of minority groups and 30 percent with companies owned by women.

The policy uses the state of Arkansas’ definition of a minority-owned business as one in which at least 51 percent of the company is owned by an African-American, a Hispanic-American, an American Indian or an Asian-Pacific Islander.

Money approved to fight bullying

The Little Rock School Board last week approved an expenditure of $461,502 for the district’s new anti-bullying curriculum, Bully Proofing Your Schools.

The majority of the cost, an estimated $334,918, will be for program materials for students in prekindergarten through 12th grades. Other costs are for parent and administrator materials and for the training of district principals and teachers.

The curriculum was developed by the National Center for School Engagement, based in Denver. It is meant to teach children to defend themselves against bullies, to help bullies change their behavior and to guide the majority of students, who are neither bullies nor victims, to be active defenders against bullies.