The timing for the Pulaski County Special School District's return to the control of a local school board after five years of state management rests with the Arkansas Board of Education and its interpretation of an as-yet-unused provision in state law.
Education Board members and Arkansas Department of Education staff members held a combination work session and public forum Thursday night at Mills University Studies High School in preparation for a board decision in the spring on the future of the 17,000-student district.
The district was classified as being in fiscal distress and taken over by the state in the spring of 2011, the steps coming as the result of gross financial mismanagement uncovered by a legislative audit. The district's superintendent and the School Board were dismissed, and Jerry Guess was appointed superintendent by Tom Kimbrell, who was then the state's education commissioner.
Later the district also was cited for declining financial balances that put the district in jeopardy of illegal deficit spending.
Education Board Chairman Toyce Newton of Crossett told about 100 people -- including Pulaski County Special district administrators, legislators, civic leaders, parents and students -- that the community forum is an unusual but useful event for the Education Board.
"It is my intent ... to have this forum as a way of hearing the voices," Newton said. "We've come to get information so we might take it back and include it in our deliberations in whatever the decision is about the Pulaski County Special School District. "
Several of the lawmakers, community members and teacher leaders called for the prompt return of the district to the control of a locally elected school board.
Sen. Linda Chesterfield D-Little Rock, urged that the school system's management be returned to that of a locally elected school board, even if the district must hire Guess as a special master or expert to accomplish certain unfinished tasks.
"Five years is enough," Chesterfield said about state control, adding that a school board typically gets rid of a superintendent after three years if the executive has not done a satisfactory job.
After a school district has been in fiscal distress for five years, the state Education Board is obligated by state law to either return the district to the control of a locally elected school board or, if the district has not corrected its financial problems, "the state board, after a public hearing, shall consolidate, annex, or reconstitute the school district."
However, Arkansas Code Annotated 6-20-1910 also says the state board may grant additional time for a public school or school district to remove itself from fiscal distress if it was not able to do so within the five years "due to impossibility caused by external forces beyond the control of the public school or school district."
Cindy Smith, coordinator for fiscal services and support in the Education Department, said the Pulaski County Special district has worked nearly five years to correct its financial problems. While the district was initially cited for misappropriation of about $440,000 in district funds, the district's 2014 audit cited the district only for failing to adequately segregate financial duties -- a very common audit citation.
Additionally, the district has built up its financial balances, which had dropped from $8 million in 2008 to $2 million in 2010, back up to what could be as much as $19 million at the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year, Smith said.
Guess, the superintendent, told the audience that the district has worked to comply with the more than 30 objectives in the district's financial-improvement plan. The only objective that has not been fulfilled is Objective 37, which calls for the district to identify reductions that are necessary to offset the loss of $20.8 million a year in state desegregation aid. That aid will be discontinued after the 2017-18 school year.
The loss of state desegregation aid and the coming detachment of the 4,000-student Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District from the Pulaski County Special district July 1 caused the Education Board and audience members to question whether those factors would constitute an "impossibility caused by external forces beyond the control" of the district. That could result in the state board retaining control of the district beyond the five-year limit.
Education Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock said he was grappling with the external-forces clause, wondering whether the state and Pulaski County Special district's involvement in the formation of the Jacksonville district was an external or internal force.
Kendra Clay, an attorney for the Education Department, said in response to Barth that external forces are not defined in state law, nor has the clause, which became part of state law in 2013, been used in deciding whether to release other state-controlled districts to local control.
In such situations the courts have directed that "the plain meanings of the words" should be used," Clay added,
Education Board member Diane Zook of Melbourne, who has previously worked in all three school districts in Pulaski County, told the audience that she personally would prefer not to consider consolidating or annexing the Pulaski County Special district. She expects her decision will focus on whether the district should have or not have a school board.
"There are a lot of unknowns at this point," Zook said.
She noted the histories of Helena-West Helena and Dollarway school districts, which have been taken over by the state, released and then taken back over by the state.
"To me, to treat a community and the children in particular and the professionals in that way could possibly be worse than delaying the return of a school board for a year," she said.
"But I don't know. I have not made up my mind," she said, adding that she will be doing a lot of studying, praying and listening to the professionals.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, one of the audience members Thursday, questioned how there could be contemplation of continuing the takeover.
She said it appeared to her that the reasons for the takeover -- audit findings and declining financial balances -- have been corrected. The ongoing state control of the district is an impediment to community and parent involvement in the district's schools.
Elliott also questioned how the formation of the Jacksonville district -- that was ordered into creation by the state Education Board -- could be a reason for ongoing fiscal distress of the Pulaski County Special system.
"Why should the patrons of this district suffer because of something they did not do themselves?" she asked, later saying, "Give the future to the people of this district."
Reginald Rogers, an audience member, questioned why the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski district is not classified by the state as being in fiscal distress, since it is arising from the Pulaski County Special system.
Johnny Key, the state's education commissioner, responded that the law doesn't provide for that designation for the new district.
Guess said he agreed that the new district should be similarly classified but he understood the interpretation of the law.
Chesterfield pressed Guess about why he couldn't do what he is doing currently while working for an elected school board. Guess said the "egregious" conditions of the school district, including the poor upkeep of its facilities, occurred under the direction of an elected school board.
Guess has said that the detachment of the Jacksonville district -- causing the loss of 4,000 students and $40 million -- is a challenge to the Pulaski County Special district.
"It's a long-term benefit to the Pulaski County Special and to the Jacksonville/North Pulaski districts but, I think, in the short term there is a great deal of exposure for both," he said.
Metro on 01/15/2016