State takes over LR schools

Board’s 7 out, chief ‘interim’

Greg Adams (left), president of the Little Rock School Board, talks with state Board of Education Chairman Sam Ledbetter after the board’s vote Wednesday to take over the district and remove the board immediately. Ledbetter cast the deciding vote for the takeover.
Greg Adams (left), president of the Little Rock School Board, talks with state Board of Education Chairman Sam Ledbetter after the board’s vote Wednesday to take over the district and remove the board immediately. Ledbetter cast the deciding vote for the takeover.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Little Rock School Board members follow the proceedings Wednesday as the state Board of Education decides on taking over their school district. From left are C.E. McAdoo, Joy Springer, Tara Shephard, board President Greg Adams, Leslie Fisken and Jim Ross.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Dexter Suggs, superintendent of Little Rock schools since July 2013, answers a question during Wednesday’s meeting. Suggs said later that the district “will continue to put children first” and that “there will be no excuses.”

"School will be held in the morning," Wood said just after the state Education Board's vote. "Buses will run, lunch will be served and children will learn. Fundamentally this is a change in the governance, in the administration, of the district. The superintendent is still in place. This forges an opportunity for he and I to work together to try to make things better. School will go on successfully."

The 24,800-student district, the state's largest, is now the second district in Pulaski County to be under state control with Wood serving in lieu of a school board and as the supervisor of the superintendent. The Pulaski County Special School District has been operating under state control for financial problems, with a state-appointed superintendent and no elected school board since June 2011.

During the meeting, the state Education Board unanimously decided to form a committee to study what the appropriate school district lines should be within Pulaski County, "taking into account communities of interest, student demographics, facilities and property tax base." The committee, which will be headed by state board member Jay Barth, will report to the state board on the matter by its June meeting.

The state board's takeover vote Wednesday came near the end of a five-hour special meeting that was attended by more than 200 Little Rock district employees, parents, students and area business people -- some of whom watched the proceedings on television monitors in overflow rooms because the boardroom was filled to capacity.

The meeting was devoted solely to deciding what action to take against the Little Rock district in regard to six of the system's 48 schools that are classified by the state as being in academic distress. In those schools -- Baseline Elementary; Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools; and J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan high schools -- fewer than half of the students scored at proficient levels on state math and literacy exams over a three-year period.

State law gives the Education Board a range of actions it can take in regard to academically distressed schools. That range includes doing nothing, removing the principal and teachers at a school, requiring a new curriculum, removing the school from a district's jurisdiction, closing the school and/or taking over the district and removing the school board and/or superintendent.

About three dozen people -- lawmakers; attorneys; a minister; students from Hall, Central and Parkview; parents; advocates for Hispanic students and other students who aren't native English speakers; and business leaders -- addressed the board during the meeting.

The majority of them asked that the state not take over the district. Those speakers included Little Rock School Board President Greg Adams and school district attorney Chris Heller.

Board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock made the motion for the state to take over the district and the formation of a citizens advisory committee. The duties of that committee were not specified Wednesday.

Saviers said earlier in the meeting that the district in which her children graduated from high school and where she helped establish a foundation to support the district had time and again failed to take bold action to change the direction of student achievement. She said only bandages were applied when the district was threatened with serious action.

"We have a long history of failure in these schools in academic distress that dates back years," Saviers said. "We have no bold plan to accelerate change for these schools. And the superintendent doesn't have the confidence that the board can sustain this plan to fix these schools, much less a bold plan."

She said the district has a chronic problem of poor governance, as evidenced by frequently changing superintendents. She also said the district has not followed its own five-year strategic plan for long-term improvements. And she said she has little confidence that the district that is facing the loss of $37 million a year in state desegregation aid after 2017-18 can make the necessary budget cuts in a way that is in the best interest of students.

Board member Diane Zook of Melbourne seconded Saviers' motion. The vote -- taken as Little Rock School Board members watched from the front row of the audience -- was initially a 4-4 tie. Board Chairman Sam Ledbetter of Little Rock broke the tie by voting for the motion.

Those voting in favor were Saviers, Zook, Ledbetter, Toyce Newton of Crossett and Kim Davis of Fayetteville.

Those voting in opposition were Jay Barth of Little Rock -- who earlier proposed a plan that was short of an immediate takeover -- Mireya Reith of Fayetteville, Alice Mahony of El Dorado and Joe Black of Newport.

Saviers' motion, which she read, stated: "I move that pursuant to Arkansas Code Annotated 6-15-430, we remove all of the current board of directors of the Little Rock School District, effective immediately. In the absence of the board of directors, I move that we direct the Commissioner of Education to assume all authority of the board of directors, as may be necessary for the day to day governance of the school district. Finally, I move that the current superintendent of the Little Rock School District remain in place on an interim basis, and that he continue to work under the authority and superivision of the Commissioner of Education."

In response to comments from her board colleagues seeking a way to keep community members engaged in the district, Saviers amended the motion to immediately form a community group of parents, students, community and business leaders and philanthropic organizations to aid in improving student performance in all schools.

After the vote, Ledbetter called Suggs -- the superintendent of the Little Rock district since July 2013 -- to the podium to tell him "We expect the same level of commitment to the children tomorrow as shown in the past. We look forward to working with you. We want this to be a new day, a new path forward and we want to return this district to local control as soon as we can and we want you to help us get there."

Suggs said in a prepared statement hours after the meeting that the focus of the district will be on delivering a quality education to students.

"We will continue to put children first, continue to move with a sense of urgency and continue to engage all sectors of the community," said Suggs, who will meet with reporters this morning about the state action. "We have a great deal of responsibility and there will be no excuses. Failure will not be an option," he continued.

Reaction to the state takeover of the Little Rock district was mixed.

Adams, who was in the midst of his second three-year term and has distinguished himself with his eloquence in recent statements on behalf of the district and board, said the decision was not what he wanted. He said he was "very disappointed" but he also hoped the move would prove to be successful for students.

Adams said he didn't know if there would be a legal challenge to the Education Board's decision but that he personally would not favor being part of a court battle that would take away from the focus on students.

Board member Jim Ross, one of two board members elected last September on a platform calling for dramatic change in the district on behalf of poor students, was angry about the state board decision.

"This was a great victory for [the late Gov.] Orval Faubus today, Ross said, referring to the former governor who played a role in blocking nine black students from entering Central High in 1957.

"This was a democratically appointed board that was bought by the chamber [of commerce] that decided at the end of the day that a black-majority, reform-minded board with a white guy who was articulate about education and knew the problems and was willing to fight with the black and Latino community couldn't be trusted," Ross said.

"We beat the chamber [of commerce] in two elections in the last few months. They decided that the democratic process was no longer worth it, just like they did in the '50s, and they turned against the democratic process. That's what happened today. They put a dictator in charge. The kids will not do well by this."

Wanda Ruffins, principal at Cloverdale Middle School, said she would go to work at Cloverdale today and "try to get it done. Students need to be educated. That's my job."

John Riggs IV, president of J.A. Riggs Tractor Co. and a former Little Rock School Board member, said after the Education Board's decision Wednesday the outpouring of support for the district surprised him.

"We haven't seen that in a long time," said Riggs, who had advocated for the state takeover during the past year.

Riggs said he thought Wednesday's choice would show prospective businesses that the state's business community is interested in progressive change.

Jay Chesshir, Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce president, said the business community has been talking about "bold change" for quite some time. To them, he said, the system and governance seemed broken.

"This is wiping the slate clean," Chesshir said. "We're starting anew with the best approach to providing quality education for all children. Today is just the beginning."

When companies are looking to create a business or expand their businesses in a city, officials look at the quality of life in the area and public education, Chesshir said. There are two aspects of that decision-making, he added.

"It's one thing to have schools underperform," he said. "It's a different thing to have schools underperforming but having the opportunity to come together and create facilities, curriculum and an atmosphere of learning that will help our children become what they want to be ... and now they have the tools to become what they want to be."

Others didn't see the board action as positive move.

Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, a civil-rights attorney long involved in the district, said the Education Board decision was "pretty much preordained," and that board members went to the meeting with their minds made up. He said the arguments made by audience speakers on behalf of the district were "sort of irrelevant."

Sen. Joyce Elliott D-Little Rock, asked that the board not take over the district. "If I break my arm, you don't put my whole body in a cast," she said.

Elliott tweeted after the meeting, "The democratically elected voice of the people in LRSD has been thwarted by appointed members of the state board of education. The LRSD board has/had a plan that was beginning to work for underserved children. Well, who knows what the plan is now?"

Amanda Warren, a teacher at Hall High School, said she was devastated by the decision. Warren, who has taught at the district for 16 years, said the School Board "for once" had really begun listening to and opening up a dialogue with teachers. She hoped the advisory committee -- which she said should include teachers "intimately acquainted" with the students at the academically distressed schools -- will have "a real role" in any decision-making processes.

The decision, she said, was sparked by "politics," and did not have the best interest of students in mind. Warren added that she didn't think the Education Department "has any idea" how to help the schools.

"If they can do it, great," she said. "But from what I've seen, I have no faith in that."

Toney Orr, the parent of five children who have attended schools throughout the district, spoke to the board during the meeting, telling of the support that district employees had provided to his children, including those with special needs, resulting in their current level of success.

Orr later described the meeting as a "dog-and-pony show for the citizens of Little Rock."

He said he felt that the state board decision was "a political move" and "they don't have a plan to change anything."

Donna Massey, president of Arkansas Community Organizations -- which advocates for low-income and working families -- said in a statement Wednesday that the Education Board's decision was "destructive and will further strain relations in our city between black and white, rich and poor, and neighborhoods north of [Interstate] 630 and those located south of I-630."

"Going forward we will work with other organizations in the community we serve to do whatever it takes to ensure that the decision made by the state Board of Education will be short term, so that we can all begin again to work for real change in our schools and real progress in giving low- to moderate-income students and parents they resources they need to succeed," said Massey, a Pulaski County justice of the peace.

A section on 01/29/2015

Reader poll

How do you think the Little Rock School District should be improved?

  • State takeover is the best option. 54%
  • The district should have been given more time. 13%
  • The state should have intervened at only the six schools under academic distress and maintained the local school board' 29%
  • Other (please comment on story) 4%

143 total votes.

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