Days before state officials gauge the Little Rock School District's progress on improving its distressed campuses, a sitting School Board member called the group "dysfunctional" and a former member said the state should take over the district.
In a guest column in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Sunday, John Riggs, a former state senator and former member of the Little Rock School Board, said the district is "not working for the children and must be taken over by the state."
Once the state takes over a district, the local, elected school board is dissolved and there is no longer any local control. There are currently three districts under state control: Pulaski County Special School District, Helena-West Helena School District and Lee County School District.
Little Rock School Board member Leslie Fisken said in a letter Saturday to Vicki Saviers, a state Education Board member and chairman of the Special Committee on Academic Distress, that the School Board members were "dysfunctional," acted "rude, inconsiderate, patronizing, and insulting" toward Superintendent Dexter Suggs and micro-managed the district's administration.
Fisken, who has been on the board since 2012, also cited frequent miscommunication between the School Board and the district's administration and a "tone of arrogance, power and control" during executive sessions.
Suggs declined to comment Sunday.
The Arkansas Board of Education's Special Committee on Academic Distress will meet with Little Rock School District officials Wednesday to discuss the district's proposed initiatives to improve six schools labeled by the state as academically distressed. A state board meeting will follow on Thursday.
Baseline Elementary, Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools and J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan high schools were designated distressed because fewer than half their students scored at proficient levels on state tests over a three-year period.
Fisken said Sunday that if the state board deems the district's solutions -- which include hiring a consultant to ensure curriculum is aligned with state standards -- insufficient, a state takeover is "absolutely" possible.
"It may be the best thing for the students," Fisken said.
Riggs said Sunday that a state takeover is a "last resort," but it is imperative that solutions be created immediately for problems that have plagued the district for years.
"A state takeover gives you so many more options in trying to craft the best solution to some of these entrenched problems we've got in our school district," Riggs said. "It would de-politicize the whole system, and then it's all about the kids -- not about the special interests and who has what votes lined up. These problems have been around for way too long, and it's going to take major surgery to do something about it."
Jim Ross, who was elected to the School Board in September, said Sunday that the group is "committed to working with children we've not worked with before" and asked the state to give the board a chance to make improvements in the district.
"We of course hope the state won't take over," Ross said. "We're a brand-new board with brand-new people and brand-new ideas. This whole narrative that's been floating around about us being dysfunctional is a very strange thing to say. It's too soon to tell if we're dysfunctional."
Fisken said Suggs has "progressive ideas," but she questions whether they will be supported by the School Board.
"If we continue on the path we're going right now, we're on a train heading for a wall," Fisken said. "I'm very interested to see what the Academic Distress Committee has to say, and I think they'll put a quality plan in place. But I don't know how effective it's going to be when the board doesn't support the overall major changes the superintendent wants to put in place."
School Board member Dianne Curry said she was "insulted" by Fisken's letter, which she said "came as a surprise" to herself and fellow board members.
In response to Fisken's comments about micro-managing the district's administration, both Curry and Ross said it's part of the job.
"I've kept my commitment as a board member to work close with the administration and make sure I ask the pertinent information that I got to to be able to communicate to someone else," Curry said.
Ross said Fisken was viewing the situation "through a lens of despair."
"If you view these things through a lens of hope, things will look different -- it will look like a board striving toward change and due process for everyone," he said. "We're passionate people, that's something you have to keep in mind."
Curry and Ross also responded by saying they do support the district's administration, including Suggs.
"I think there's some really good things happening with Dr. Suggs," Ross said. "If I have any complaint, it's that he's being too conservative. He's being very, very reticent about making massive changes that have to come. We're going to have to make some major systemic changes to educate the children we've left behind."
Ross said he was composing a letter to Saviers on Sunday in response to Fisken's concerns.
Riggs said inefficiency and "powerlessness" existed on the board when he was a member during the 1990s and things have only gotten worse.
He pointed to low voter turnout in the most recent School Board election as a "failure of democracy" and another reason the state should take over.
"It's sad, I don't know how else to describe it," Riggs said of watching Little Rock School Board meetings. "I get embarrassed for School Board members, for how they treat each other, the public and the superintendent. It's just gone off the tracks."
Ross said that the Little Rock district needs to keep its elected board in order to make the necessary changes and its commitment to educating lower-income students.
"There's no Superman going to come in and fix this problem, but the superintendent working together with a bunch of deputy superintendents and seven board members, we can," Ross said. "We're going to make changes over the next few years, and I have faith we're going to see improvements across the board."
Metro on 01/05/2015