The November School Board election in the Pulaski County Special School District -- the first to be held in conjunction with a general election -- generated more campaign contributions and more voters per contested race than in school elections of past years.
Nine candidates in four of the seven School Board races raised almost $100,000, according to the campaign contribution and expenditure reports posted to the Pulaski County clerk's office website. Contributors included political action committees, the district's employee union and prominent Little Rock business people -- some of whom are not usually associated with the Pulaski County Special district.
There are no financial contribution reports on the Pulaski County clerk's website for either of the two candidates who vied for the Zone 2 board seat -- winner Tina Renee Ward and her opponent Mildred Tatum -- or for one candidate in the three-person race for Zone 4 -- Cori Burgett Fetters.
Of the seven open board seats, two were uncontested, and those candidates -- Mike Kemp from Zone 1 and Alicia Gillen from Zone 5 -- had no reason to raise money to be elected.
A total of 31,994 people cast votes in the five contested races for the School Board in November. Another 8,957 people participated in the general election in the five school district zones but chose to skip over the School Board election part of their ballots.
That's in contrast to the past, when turnout in a typical School Board election tended to be in the hundreds per race, not thousands, and campaign funds tended to be in three-digit amounts, not four- and five-digit amounts.
Arkansas law changed in 2015 to give school boards across the state the choice of holding school board elections with the November general elections rather than in September, which is the time set in law for school elections.
The Pulaski County Special board election was the first election for the 12,000-student district since the state took over the system in June 2011 for financial mismanagement. The state replaced the district's superintendent at the time with a state-appointed leader and dissolved the locally elected School Board.
In March 2016, the Arkansas Board of Education concluded that the district had corrected its financial problems and could be returned to the direction of a locally elected school board once one was elected and trained. Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key exercised the legal authority given to school boards to schedule that election to coincide with the general election, which included the selection of a U.S. senator and president. Key did the same for the election of a new School Board in Helena-West Helena that was similarly exiting state control.
Linda Remele of Sherwood, who was elected from the district's Zone 3 and is now the president of the new board, said the combining of the school election with the November general election "worked well" because people she met while campaigning were very aware of the upcoming election and were planning to go to the polls.
"It wasn't a special election where just a few knew about it," Remele said. "Whenever you have a special election, you have a hard time getting your message out to the general public. Yard signs and all that tend to become wallpaper. People don't realize that an election date is coming up and that they need to go out and vote. At a general election, people are more aware."
Pam Fitzgiven, a district elementary school teacher and president of the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers union, said Friday that November elections for school boards should not become standard practice.
"Voters lose sight of School Board candidates' platforms and the district's local issues," Fitzgiven said.
While the large turnout of voters was an advantage to the November vote, she said, "the focus on the School Board candidates was overshadowed by the presidential election and other state elections."
The Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers is no longer recognized as a contract bargaining agent for employees but does continue to work to influence district personnel decisions -- in part through Fitzgiven's role as chairman of the district's legally required Personnel Policies Committee.
Fitzgiven also said Friday that teacher leaders were "shocked at the amount of money involved in this School Board election."
Fundraising details
The winning candidates for whom campaign financial reports are posted on the Pulaski County clerk's website raised between $17,100 and $28,125, while the unsuccessful candidates reported contributions ranging from none or loans to themselves to $8,200.
Remele, a retired deputy superintendent in the district, and Gloria Lawrence, a retired district teacher and a former School Board member, competed for the Zone 3 seat representing a part of Sherwood.
Lawrence raised $2,825, and received 2,709 votes in November. She had raised more than $8,400 when she defeated an incumbent for election to the board in September 2010. She received 1,080 votes to her opponents's 364 votes that year.
Remele received 4,366 votes, or almost 62 percent of those cast in the Zone 3 race. Her campaign contribution and expenditure reports showed that she raised $28,125, although she said in an interview that the actual amount was about $25,000 because she returned some contributions.
Her list of contributors is made up of prominent Little Rock and North Little Rock business people: Hugh McDonald, a retired Entergy executive; John A. Riggs IV of J.A. Riggs Tractor Co.; Haskell Dickinson of McGeorge Contracting Co.; and Gary L. Smith of Glass Erectors. Others included business leaders Gus Blass II, Michael Coulson, Mack McLarty, Dickson Flake, Millie Ward, Bob Birch, Jeff Hathaway and Troy Wells, along with U.S. Rep. J. French Hill.
Organizational contributors included Arkansas Learns, which advocates for giving school choice to parents, and the Progress and Good Schools for PCSSD political action committees. Jay Chesshir, president and chief executive officer of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Rett Tucker, a Little Rock commercial real estate developer, are listed in the Arkansas secretary of state's office as officers for the two political action committees.
Each of the organizations contributed $2,700 to the campaigns of Remele; Brian Maune, who raised $18,426 overall; Shelby Thomas, who raised a total $17,100; and Eli Keller, who raised a total $21,147.
"I've met and known many of those people who were active and instrumental in forming the Little Rock Public Education Foundation when it was in its heyday," Remele said about her Who's Who list of contributors. She previously worked for the foundation.
"They were all big supporters and I knew them because we would all attend functions. I was not an unknown name to them. There are some I don't know," she said, adding that she believed they supported her on the basis of recommendations from their friends and the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. "It's a desire of the business community to see Pulaski County Special School District be successful. If we aren't successful, it will be harder for the Little Rock School District to be successful."
The Little Rock district is beginning its third year of state control without a locally elected board because five of its schools are labeled by the state as being in academic distress.
Both Remele and School Board member Maune, who was elected in a three-person race from west Pulaski County's Zone 7, said they met with the political action committees to share information about themselves.
Remele said she made no commitments to the organizations about her position on matters that would come before the School Board.
Maune, whose opponents were Julian McMurray and James Jolley, said the organizations wanted to know from him: "Who are you?" and "Are you in it for the long run?"
Gary Newton, executive director of Arkansas Learns and an early proponent in 2011 for school board elections to be held in conjunction with general elections, said the the Pulaski County Special election was "a resounding success."
"It was very satisfying knowing that the state returned Pulaski County Special and Helena-West Helena to exponentially more local control than they ever experienced before," Newton said, adding that the large number of voters in the Pulaski County Special district, in particular, was unprecedented.
He also said the successful candidates, who include an educator, a police officer, a mayor, a chamber of commerce leader and business people, represent a cross section of the community.
"If we are choosing to govern our public schools via a democracy, then we should maximize the democracy," he said. "The way to do that is to actually hold the elections when people vote and not on some obscure date in September that no one knows about except those especially interested in those elections."
Newton said he was unconcerned that more than 8,000 people went to the polls but chose not to vote on School Board members in contested races. He said people choose not to vote in races in which they are undecided or don't know.
Arkansas Learns does not typically contribute to local school board races but decided to make the maximum allowable contribution of $2,700 to each of four candidates in the Pulaski County Special election.
But Newton said the Pulaski County Special election was "pivotal" because all seven board members were to be elected at one time and because Pulaski County Special is one of the very few districts in the state that does not permit interdistrict student transfers or school choice across district lines. Giving parents school choice options is his organization's main focus.
A Section on 01/07/2017