The job assignments for three Little Rock School District administrators are in question for the coming 2014-15 school year after a School Board vote Monday night that was meant to settle the matter.
It was all about the wording of the board's motion and a 3-3 tie that defeated it.
Attorneys for the three mid-level administrators -- Wanda Huddle, Irma Routen and Marion Woods -- said they believed after the vote that the employees will retain their current jobs for another school year. Superintendent Dexter Suggs contends that his recommendations to eliminate the jobs won out.
Routen is the district's grant project director for music, Woods is director/facilitator of physical education and health, and Huddle is the senior director of curriculum/social studies. Their salaries range from $81,146 to $121,476.
In January, Suggs notified the three by letter that their positions would be eliminated for the coming 2014-15 school year because of budget cuts and staff realignments.
The superintendent later rescinded those letters and sent another set of letters dated April 24 telling the three again of the plans to end their jobs but this time adding that each would be assigned to teaching jobs in the areas in which they are licensed by the state to teach.
Both sets of letters stated that the employees had the right to appeal the elimination of their positions to the school board. After receiving each letter, the employees requested a hearing before the board.
Austin Porter Jr., an attorney for the three employees, argued to the board Monday that procedural errors had occurred in giving the employees notice of their jobs being cut and their rights to appeal to the board. As a result of the errors, Porter said the employees' current job contracts should be renewed.
In the case of the January letter, Porter said the school board failed to schedule and hold hearings in the time frame set by the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act. That act requires appeal hearings to be held no earlier than five days and no later than 20 days after an employee asks for a hearing.
"We should not be having this hearing in the first place," Porter told the board after describing the timing violation.
The second letters were sent by certified mail April 25, but two of the three employees did not receive those letters until after May 1, Porter said.
The law says school districts must give notice to certified employees by May 1 of changes in their contracts for the next school year or their existing contracts will be automatically renewed. The notice can be hand-delivered or sent by certified mail.
Porter told the board that Suggs rescinded and later re-issued the letters in an effort to correct defects in the earlier process. Such corrections are not permitted by state law, he said.
Khayyam Eddings, an attorney for the school district, cited a 1988 Supreme Court case in which the court did allow the school district to make corrections in the process of changing a teacher's contract, adding that the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act requires "substantial compliance" as opposed to "strict compliance" with its provisions.
Porter asked the board to decide whether the procedural violations were grounds for the employees to retain their current positions, making a full hearing on other reasons for cutting or preserving the jobs unnecessary.
After several questions and much discussion about what constitutes delivery and receipt of notice and the "mailbox rule" in state law, board member Leslie Fisken made a motion to "continue with the hearing," saying that the first set of letters are no longer in question and that the second set of letters was appropriately sent.
Board President Greg Adams agreed, adding that the district can't be prevented from eliminating positions by employees who might say they didn't receive a certified letter.
"The context is that we know that unless we streamline, we will be placed in fiscal distress," Adams said about the state classification for districts that routinely dip into reserves to meet expenses. That can result in a state takeover of the district.
Board member Dianne Curry agreed that the district must make budget cuts, but she argued against the process that cuts jobs by naming the employees instead of the jobs. She also said she has repeatedly asked for a written, comprehensive budget-cutting plan.
Fisken, Adams and Jody Carriero voted for the motion to continue with the hearing. Curry, C.E. McAdoo and Tara Shephard voted against the motion. The tie, by board policy, defeats a motion.
Suggs said in a break in the meeting that because there was no hearing on cutting the jobs and reassigning the employees to other positions, the plans to make those changes would stand.
Questioned by the board and attorneys for the employees whether that was indeed the case, Chris Heller, an attorney for the district, said he couldn't give a concrete answer without more study.
"The board could have voted to reject the superintendent's recommendations because of procedural issues," Heller said. "That would have been as clear as it could be."
Metro on 06/24/2014