Jacksonville-area voters go 94.5% for new district

Julian Hanlin, 7, posts unofficial returns Tuesday night at a watch party at the Jacksonville Community Center for supporters of a separate Jacksonville/North Pulaski school system.
Julian Hanlin, 7, posts unofficial returns Tuesday night at a watch party at the Jacksonville Community Center for supporters of a separate Jacksonville/North Pulaski school system.

Nearly 95 percent of Jacksonville and north Pulaski County voters in Tuesday's election said they favored the formation of a new Jacksonville-area school district to be carved out of the existing Pulaski County Special School District.



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The 94.53 percent vote for a Jacksonville/North Pulaski public school district was decades in coming. Jacksonville civic leaders had talked and worked for a separate district for the area since as far back as the 1960s.

The complete but unofficial results are:

For 3,767

Against 218

About 21 percent of the 18,433 eligible voters in the boundaries of the proposed Jacksonville/North Pulaski school district participated in Tuesday's election. Bryan Poe, director of elections in Pulaski County, called the percentage "record shattering for a school election."

The Pulaski County Election Commission is scheduled to certify the vote, or make it official, Sept. 26.

Daniel Gray, chairman of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District Education Corps, which spearheaded the drive for a new district in recent years, called the day "historic" and "a new beginning."

"Ninety -five percent is just a crazy number," Gray said at a celebratory Vote For Our Own District watch party for about 200 at the Jacksonville Community Center. "We hit it out of the park," he said.

"Our community has wanted this for so long," he added. "I think the totals just show how much we are committed to making this successful. It should send a message to anybody that wants to come be part of this -- the future superintendent, the teachers, the staff, the students, the people who live here and the people thinking about moving here -- this town is excited."

As a result of the vote, the Arkansas Board of Education is expected within the next several weeks to issue an order creating the Jacksonville district and, on the basis of nominations made by a committee of elected officials, name an interim school board for the new district. That board in turn is likely to appoint an interim superintendent.

Despite those moves, a new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District is expected to operate under the direction of the Pulaski County Special School District for at least the 2014-15 school year, if not also the 2015-16 school year, to provide the time necessary to divvy up school district property, debt, equipment and personnel.

The Arkansas Education Board in March ordered Tuesday's election on the formation of the school district in response to a petition signed by more than 2,079 registered voters who live within the boundaries of proposed district and after a federal judge presiding in Pulaski County's long-running desegregation case agreed that a new district could be formed in accordance with the requirements of state law.

The new district, which will be about 100 square miles, was approved for detachment from the Pulaski County Special School District by that district's School Board in July 2009.

The area includes Jacksonville High and North Pulaski High, as well as Bayou Meto, Murrell Taylor, Pinewood, Tolleson, Arnold Drive and Warren Dupree elementary schools; Homer Adkins Pre-kindergarten Center; and Jacksonville Middle School.

The former Jacksonville Elementary and Jacksonville Middle School-North are also in the new district but are currently not used. The Pulaski County Special district also has a school bus lot in the affected area.

No organized opposition to the proposal materialized.

Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher called the election night one for "hugs and smiles" and the vote "very important for children" and "'a game-changer for the city."

"Education is such a fundamental foundation of any city. We have been held back for so long from our potential, and now we have been set free. Our district is going to be as grand and great as we can make it," Fletcher said, adding that the city is getting an opportunity that no other community has ever been given -- to create a district. "While others are losing their schools, we are gaining our identity."

James Bolden, a Jacksonville pastor and former School Board member in the Pulaski County Special School District, praised the unity in the community that led to the lopsided vote.

"I'm telling you we have got to keep this same unity to have a successful district," Bolden said as he urged the crowd to give themselves a round of applause. "We're going to make this work. We have crossed the Red Sea and we are headed to the Promised Land."

Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special School District, also at the watch party, called it a good day for Jacksonville, "and I've said all along I think it is a good day for PCSSD."

The Pulaski County Special district has supported the proposal to detach the Jacksonville area because that would relieve the district from having to pay for the improvements to the schools to make them comparable to newly constructed schools in Maumelle and Sherwood.

Jacksonville leaders wanted their own district in part to be able to improve school campuses, qualifying for state building funds that the Pulaski County Special district was unable to qualify for because of its relatively high level of local property wealth.

Despite the excitement over the election results, Guess, along with Gray and other leaders of the Jacksonville initiative were quick to say Tuesday that the hard work of putting together an operating school system for some 4,000 students was just beginning.

"There's going to be a lot of work and a lot of detail," Guess said.

Charles Stein, who heads the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation, told a legislative committee Monday that the state is $65 million short of the $173 million needed for approved school building projects over the next two years. Stein also said that the Jacksonville district had missed the application deadline for funding in the next two-year cycle and would likely have to wait until 2016 to apply.

Patrick Wilson, an attorney for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District Education Corps, said Tuesday night that the Jacksonville leaders will attempt to negotiate with the Arkansas Department of Education "to work around that problem."

Gray said the first order of business for the new district will be to get a school board and superintendent who will be able to explore multiple ways to raise and save money for the new district but he also was hopeful about the state construction funds.

"We're going to trust the state of Arkansas to take care of its people," he said, adding that legislators know that they have a responsibility to ensure that school buildings are adequate.

Also on the ballot for Tuesday's election in Jacksonville and throughout the Pulaski County Special School District was the district's 40.7-mill property tax rate. School districts are required by the state constitution to put their tax rates on the ballot annually, even if no change is proposed. No matter how the vote turned out, the existing millage rate would remain at the current level anyway. But the vote is seen as a gauge of public support for a district.

The results on the 40.7 rate are:

For 2,712

Against 1,255

A section on 09/17/2014

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