50 rally for Sherwood school

Pupils, parents seek to save programs on chopping block...

Dominic Diamond walked up to the podium with only a sheet of paper, turned to an advisory board for his school district and pleaded with its members to not take away programs that he said helped shape him.

The 11-year-old, a fifth-grader at William Jefferson Clinton Elementary Magnet School in Sherwood, told the Pulaski County Community Advisory Board on Monday that speech and technology were "important skills to have to be successful in the real world."

The student body president said he was disappointed to hear that other children, including his younger sister, might not have the same opportunities as him.

"Please leave the legacy of Clinton intact," he said. "Please do not remove our specialty programs."

Dominic and his parents were among 50 students, parents and residents rallying at the board meeting Monday to keep Clinton Elementary's speech-communications, computer-technology and home-counselor programs, along with those programs' three staff positions. About 15 people spoke during public comment, prompting the crowd to break out in applause after each segment.

The Sherwood school's programs were listed by Pulaski County Special School District officials in about $6 million of proposed budget cuts for the 2014-15 school year. The district will be making cuts over the next three years in anticipation of losing $20 million a year in state desegregation funds after the 2017-18 school year.

The three Pulaski County school districts, the state and intervening parties representing school employees and black students settled a 31-year-old federal school-desegregation lawsuit earlier this year. As part of the settlement, the parties set a date to end the $68.3 million a year in state desegregation aid to the Pulaski County Special School District, the Little Rock School District and the North Little Rock School District.

On Monday, the speakers urged the advisory board to recommend to Arkansas Department of Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell, who acts as the school board for the district, to hold off on the proposed cuts until they could find another funding solution for the programs. The district, which is in its third year in the state's fiscal-distress program, remains under state control without a locally elected school board.

Beginning next year, students in the third grade and beyond will begin taking the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College And Careers test, part of which is taken on a computer.

"It's just unbelievable to me ... that we would take away programs for technology and speech communication" when they're so intertwined in new academic standards, said parent Tina Lee. "Why do we want to set up our children to fail?"

The proposal, she said, would strip away the school's magnet status and the programs that attracted many parents in the first place.

"If you start stripping neighborhood schools bare, they are not going to be able to compete against private schools and charter schools," she said.

Parents will start pulling their children from neighborhood schools, like Clinton, and send them elsewhere, placing the district back in fiscal and academic distress, Lee said.

"Not only are we setting up our kids to fail, we're setting up the district to fail," she said.

It wouldn't be wise of district officials to cut those types of programs when science, technology and mathematics are "at the root of what we call educational success," said state Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock.

"I believe that cuts in public education are to be made furthest away from the children," she added.

Laura Montgomery, a home counselor, also fought for her program, saying that children still have needs. As a home counselor, Montgomery monitors students' health care, clothing and even diets, she said, adding that she checks in on children with home visits.

"This is one program that is so necessary," she said. "If you remove these things, then who's going to do this?"

After the public comment period, advisory board chairman Daniel Gray asked other board members if they wanted to say anything or had any questions. After some silence, board member Julian McMurray said he agreed with the crowd.

"I assure you that I will do the best of my ability to make sure that our children get the best education possible," he said.

Gray said he didn't think the administration or the advisory board wanted to make cuts to the programs, but the district is facing the end of the state desegregation aid and must still fund 30 schools. He's asked that administrators share spreadsheets on the possible cuts and discuss the budget before any final decision is made.

"Every child in the district deserves the same opportunity," he said.

Nearly half of the district's $20 million loss in desegregation aid will be offset by other provisions in the settlement, Chief Financial Officer Bill Goff said. The estimated net loss to the district would be about $9.8 million, he said.

The district anticipates receiving about $5 million in state foundation aid for the majority-to-minority interdistrict transfer students who choose to stay in the district. The district will no longer contribute $3 million a year for the operation of Little Rock magnet schools and is expecting $3 million more in savings when magnet school busing is phased out.

To absorb that cost, Goff said the board needed to evaluate all programs' effectiveness and efficiency.

"We have a finite amount of money," Gray said. "And we're losing it."

Metro on 03/19/2014

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