It's a week of firsts for Michael Poore.
On Wednesday, the incoming state-appointed superintendent for the Little Rock School District and his wife, Marianne, moved from Bentonville and officially became residents of the capital city. On Thursday, he met for the first time with the school district's Civic Advisory Committee -- a 30-member panel created to give voice to residents in the state-controlled system -- hearing the group's recommendations on equity, school buildings and charter schools.
And he was met by community members, some holding signs that read, "Mr. Poore, we charge you to hear the voices of the Little Rock School District" and "1)Bring back to local control, 2) advocate against charter expansion, 3) get community input before making big decisions."
Last year, the state took over the school district, dismissed its elected School Board and placed its superintendent under state direction. The actions were the result of six schools that had been classified as academically distressed because of chronically low student test scores. One school has since been removed from the list.
In May 2015, Education Commissioner Johnny Key named Baker Kurrus, a Harvard-educated attorney and businessman, as the district's superintendent. And this April, Key plucked Kurrus from the role and put in Poore.
"You know, one of the things that I think is important for everyone to realize ... is that I was given a charge, and the charge -- and I see it within the signs that are out there. You already anticipate what it might be, you already know -- which is to return the district back to local control," Poore said Thursday. "And I know that's hard to totally buy into because you know some of the other decisions that have happened over the span of time creates doubt about that -- 'I mean, really that's what they said to you?' Well, that's what they said to me.
"That's what I believe. That's what I feel like I'm here to do is to return things back to local control as quick as I can. And then I hope that even as it gets back to local control that I'll be the person that this community says we want as superintendent."
During the Civic Advisory Committee's last meeting -- it is disbanding and will be replaced by the state's new stakeholder group, which is to meet Monday -- Poore also distributed his "listen and learn entry plan" and took questions from committee members.
Poore's plan -- which, he said, is "one of the most aggressive" he has created -- includes calling 10 students, teachers, parents, community or business leaders a day and going door-to-door in neighborhoods as a meet-and-greet. He'll try out Twitter town halls, he said, and other ways to reach out to the community, the primary concern of one of five sections of the committee's key findings and also of a protest earlier in the day by the Junior NAACP chapter of Little Rock Central High School.
"I was initially criticized by some: 'How can you have an entry plan when you haven't even been here?'" he said. "This is all about how to reach out to folks in this community to gather information and help form direction for our community."
Poore is also calling for the creation of an "achieve team" of faculty members and parents to help the academically distressed schools. The team will add a level of support for the improvement efforts through the use of data, staff training and community resources.
Another of his points, which drew some suspicion from committee member Anika Whitfield: "Spend time with Baker Kurrus to understand the financial and organizational plan to help the Little Rock School District back to local control."
The state did not take over the district because of fiscal troubles, she said, adding that casting it that way breeds more suspicion.
"We have been hurt. We have been taken over by a system that never listened to what we wanted in the first place," Whitfield said "What is it that you are willing to do to prove to us and to show us that you are not a part of the Walton Foundation charter takeover, that you are not a part of trying to make our school district fiscally distressed so that the Arkansas Department of Education has another justification to continue to keep us at bay, and what are you really willing to do to make sure we are part of a process when it comes to potential school closures?"
Poore said it's necessary to talk about the district's finances since it is about to lose $37 million annually in desegregation funds. He's not wishing to take away from academics or safety in making the necessary reductions, he added.
Regarding the input on school closures, Poore said he had to close nine schools in Colorado Springs, and it was "God-awful." The process called for open forums, some that lasted until 1 a.m., and some of the plans changed because of the input, he said, adding that the Little Rock community should expect transparency on his end.
Whitfield asked Poore about his connection with the Walton Family Foundation.
The foundation, based in Bentonville, is a financial supporter of charter schools nationally, in the state and in Little Rock. The foundation provided a grant for Northwest Arkansas school district leaders -- including Poore, who was the superintendent of the Bentonville School District -- to visit model career-education centers in Michigan, California, Oklahoma and New York. It also gave funding for two years to Bentonville's career-education program.
"I've never been asked by [Jim Walton] or any of his staff, so to speak, to please go and enhance charter schools," he said. "I've never had any educator in Northwest Arkansas or any place in the state ... say, 'Mike, watch out, the Waltons are going to tell you to do this.' I know you have lived your own experiences down here in terms of where things are. I understand that to some degree. Again, all I can say is that I'm going to do everything I can to protect the Little Rock School District and have it move forward and have all the students that we're currently serving be able to have the very best education, and I don't want to lose one bit."
That is something he still has to prove, said Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, who attended Thursday's meeting.
"He's given an answer that is an incomplete answer in that when people ask straight ahead, 'Will you advocate for the Little Rock School District by pushing back against any further expansions' -- and this is key -- 'until we are stable?,'" she said. "To be the superintendent of this district, in my estimation, and to be a superintendent with fidelity absolutely means that he has to understand that stability depends on a lack of disruption, any further disruption, by charter schools."
The state Education Board has already approved the multiyear expansion of the eSTEM and LISA Academy charter-school systems in Little Rock by almost 3,000 pupils.
Elliott said she wasn't concerned about what Poore presented Thursday but about the implementation of the plans in a larger outlook.
"It's plodding. It's cumbersome. But at the end of a process like that, if you're committed to it, we can have an absolutely fantastic school district that people will clamor to be a part of," she said. "We can do that, but it can't be a tweak here and a tweak there. And it can't be a few people making the decisions. It has to be the engagement of all the stakeholders and some community members."
Metro on 06/03/2016