DEER — As a bus filled with legislators left the Deer school parking lot and headed down a mountain on a narrow dirt road into an oak-packed forest, an English teacher hollered from the back of the bus.
"You are about to lose cell-phone service," called out Joy Spivey, who rides the bus with her four kids every day. "It doesn't exist."
Richard Denniston, superintendent of the Deer-Mount Judea School District in southern Newton County, invited the House and Senate Education Committees to meet in his district. He wanted them to experience what he describes as the "geographic distress" of his district deep in the dense Ozark National Forest.
Denniston is fighting for his district's survival. It has about 375 students and gets smaller each year, teetering toward 350 students. State law requires that districts that fall below 350 consolidate with another district.
There were three buses on the winding ride Thurs-day, a trip of 14 miles that took 45 minutes. The buses passed near the edge of precipices. Branches raked the tops and sides of the buses. They crossed two streams on old concrete bridges before turning around in front of Spivey's house.
"If we get stuck here, we're going to be eating all the food in your house," Sen. Jimmy Jeffress, D-Crossett, told Spivey.
"About all we've got is squirrel, but you're welcome to it," Spivey responded, saying her husband likes to hunt while she's at school.
BROKEN BUS
On the way back up the hill, the first bus stopped. Then the second one stopped to avoid hitting the first.
"They've sprung a leak!" someone called out on the second bus.
Rep. George Overbey, DLamar, jumped off the second bus to warn the third, which was rounding a wooded curve and steadily approaching. Overbey ran, waving his arms. The third stopped.
With confused looks, seven or eight legislators got off the first bus.
They milled around on the road, several of them in business attire. The second bus had no room. So the lawmakers waited to hitch a ride on the third.
"Y'all think this was planned?" asked Sen. Gene Jeffress, D-Louann, in a half-serious tone.
Someone else called out that the district would hold them hostage in the forest until it got a promise of more money from the Legislature.
Denniston laughs off the notion that the breakdown - a water pump on the bus went bad - was on purpose. He said it cost the district a few hundred dollars to get a wrecker service to send a vehicle that was capable of hauling the bus up the mountain for repairs.
Deer is about 50 miles north of Russellville on Arkansas 7. The school is off Arkansas 16, a couple of miles west of Arkansas 7. Along the road are two churches, a post office, a tiny community health center, and a U.S. Forest Service post.
People in the area generally either work for the school district, for the Forest Service, are cattle farmers or loggers, or commute to Russellville, Clarksville, Harrison or wherever else they can find work, Denniston said.
Many people are leaving the area for jobs. The district has lost about 100 students since the Legislature passed the consolidation law in 2004.
That law created the district out of Deer and the Mount Judea district on the eastern side of Newton County.
"I'm confident the Legislature will have the compassion [and] make adjustments for our special needs," Denniston said.
THEIR CASE
An administrator in Deer for 17 years, Denniston said he's "on a mission" that has nothing to do with keeping his job. He said he could retire or get a job in another district. He said he's "trying to protect these kids" from losing their schools.
Denniston said that ifhis district is forced to consolidate, it would likely join the Jasper district, which makes up most of the rest of Newton County. The Jasper district also includes parts of Johnson, Franklin, Carroll and Madison counties
That would be an unworkable situation, he said.
The resulting district would encompass 1,058 square miles and be bigger than any county in the state, he said.
In that scenario, administrators in Jasper would likely find it too expensive to keep open the schools in Deer and Mount Judea. That would mean busing the Deer-Mount Judea students to Jasper and even longer bus rides, Denniston said.
Deer-Mount Judea may take the issue to court if it doesn't get its way from the Legislature. The district hashired former state Sen. Bill Lewellen, D-Marianna, one of the lawyers who initiated the school-funding suit in 1992 on behalf of the now-defunct Lake View district in Phillips County. That led to a state Supreme Court landmark ruling requiring school-funding adequacy.
Lewellen said he sees no difference between the Lake View district and the Deer-Mount Judea district.
"Lake View just happened to be in the Delta," he said. "Lake View was about funding education. [With low] property values, they are probably more akin to each other than any districts."
Rep. Roy Ragland, R-Marshall, who represents the area, said Deer-Mount Judea deserves a "special exemption. It's tactically impossible. To get to Jasper, you're going to have to put some kids on the bus before 6 a.m."
He says the longer routes would only heighten the risks presented by fog and snow that students face already on mountainous roads.
MONEY
The state provides a much higher percentage of Deer-Mount Judea's operating budget than the state average for all districts.
The district's locally collected property tax receipts were $595,291 for the 2007-08 school year, according the latest data available from the state Department of Education.
The state's share of the district's "foundation funding" - or the money necessary to achieve an adequate education as required by the state Supreme Court - was $1.7 million.
That's a ratio of about $3 state for each $1 local.
For all districts, local property taxes produced $1.24 billion compared with $1.79 billion in state, a ratio of about $1.50 state for $1 local.
The district also gets nearly $800,000 from the state for being termed "isolated,"about half of which Denniston in 2005 was able to persuade the Legislature to fund as an additional supplement.
Denniston counters that "we're cheap" for the state because Deer-Mount Judea requires no additional facilities, unlike growing districts.
WHAT TO DO?
The bouncy bus ride didn't move the chairman of either education committee to Denniston's side.
"It's probably as rough and isolated as I imagined, but I live with mountains," said Rep. Bill Abernathy, D-Mena, chairman of the House committee. "But they have a real dilemma here."
He said the state should first study whether it's "reasonable" to send the students to other schools. Other options to be looked at are whether the district could be "re-organized" as a charter school or could benefit from more distance-learning classes through video. Only if none of those options would work should the state consider giving the district a consolidation exemption, Abernathy said.
Granting one exemption for Deer-Mount Judea would lead to others, he said.
"Then, you have to be careful because you break down what is a good and efficient way to manage our resources for the good of everybody," Abernathy said.
Jimmy Jeffress, chairman of the Senate committee, said Denniston makes a "compelling case" and maybe the Legislature can do something.
"But whatever we do, I don't want to open the door wide enough that everyoneelse can drive their team of horses through," he said.
In the 2009 session, another small district, the Weiner district, failed to win an exemption from consolidation.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel's office argued against the Weiner bill, contending that any change to the consolidation law, which was accepted as constitutional by the state Supreme Court, would have to be "evidence-based."
Ken James, the education commissioner at the time, also opposed Weiner's effort. He said it's hard for smaller districts to provide the required courses.
On Friday, Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, said the governor would lean against granting an exemption to Deer-Mount Judea.
"That could be potentially legally dangerous," DeCample said. "If one district gets a waiver, another district that had to consolidate could take that to court."
Instead, Beebe favors finding a way to keep the schools at Deer and Mount Judea open after the district is consolidated with another district. That could require additional state dollars, and Beebe's not ready to commit to that, DeCample said.
Lindsey Reynolds, 17, a senior, said her bus ride each day is about an hour each way.
"After this many years, you just grow used to it," she said. "I listen to my iPod."
She doubts she'll stay in town after graduation.
"I have bigger plans than here," she said.
Front Section, Pages 1, 10 on 09/27/2009