The town of Gillett is best known for its annual Coon Supper, but its elementary school has more lives than a cat.
The community and its tiny 74-pupil elementary school survived yet another scare Monday, when the state Board of Education once again took up the issue of whether to close it.
On Monday, the board rescinded its October vote that allowed the school to remain open in the DeWitt School District.
But then the state board failed Monday to follow up by approving either of two motions that would have sealed the school’s future one way or the other.
The department’s attorney concluded that the board’s failure to either approve or deny the DeWitt School District’s petition to close the geographically isolated Gillett school results in keeping the school in operation indefinitely.
“You are in the situation where you have neither officially approved nor denied the petition,” Jeremy Lasiter told the board. “You voted on both. Both motions failed. The only thing I can tell you with any degree of certainty is that you are at status quo. The school remains open.The petition has not been approved by this board.”
The DeWitt School Board voted 5-2 earlier this calendar year to close the Gillett Elementary School to save what DeWitt Superintendent Gary Wayman said Monday would be $241,567 a year in operating costs. The Gillett pupils would be reassigned to the DeWitt Elementary School.
Because the Gillett school is classified by the state as a geographically isolated school in a consolidated school district, the law requires any plan by the DeWitt district to close Gillett Elementary to do so only with a unanimous decision of the DeWitt School Board.
When the local board decision was affirmative but not unanimous, the districtpetitioned the state board to make the final decision.
After hearing the pleas and pledges of financial contributions to the school’s operating costs from Gillett community leaders, the Education Board voted 5-2 in October to deny the DeWitt petition and allow the school to remain open.
In November, Education Board member Sam Ledbetter of Little Rock asked thatthe matter be placed on the agenda for possible reconsideration after he heard that keeping the school open would strain the DeWitt district finances to the point it would affect teacher pay.
The state board passed the motion Monday to reconsider. Wayman argued for closure. Gillett Mayor Jared Holzhauer and banker Larry Bauer opposed it.
Wayman said the high cost of operating the school puts the DeWitt district in jeopardy of being placed in fiscal distress in future years. He said it costs the district $10,909 per student to operate Gillett Elementary as opposed to $5,486 per student at the 6-year-old DeWitt Elementary. DeWitt Elementary can accommodate all Gillettstudents and faculty, he said.
Holzhauer, the father of three young children, questioned the per-student costs at the two schools and the proposed savings, and he said the high achievement and small class sizes at Gillettwere features to value.
Bauer said the community had raised $87,700 to spend at the Gillett school.
The state board’s first vote to approve the DeWitt petition and close the school failed on a 4-4 vote. Chairman Jim Cooper of Melbourne cast the tying vote in favor of the petition. The board chairman rarely votes but can do so to break a tie or when it will make a difference in the outcome.
The next motion to deny the DeWitt petition and keep the school open failed in a 3-4 vote in which the chairman did not vote.
Those voting to deny the petition and keep the school open were Toyce Newton of Crossett, Mireya Reith of Fayetteville, Jay Barth of Little Rock and Alice Mahony of El Dorado.
Barth said he wanted to see more cooperation and creativity between Gillett and the district, as well as in other districts in similar situations.
“I am recognizing that this is ‘how fast does the Band-Aid get pulled off’ situation,” Barth said about the school closureand the DeWitt finances.
Besides Cooper, those who favored the petition to close the school were Ledbetter, Vicki Saviers of Little Rock and Brenda Gullett of Fayetteville.
“What would an innovative solution be?” Saviers said. “The kids aren’t there. You can’t make somebody get on a bus to go to Gillett if they don’t want to.”
The board’s ninth member, Joe Black of Newport, has been ill for several weeks and was absent Monday.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 12/11/2012