The School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District on Monday settled on an approximate annual salary of $215,000 for the superintendent's job in the 12,000-student system.
The board set that and some of the other factors for a search for a superintendent at a Monday work session, after which interim Superintendent Janice Warren said she will apply for the chief executive's job that she has held temporarily since July.
The seven-member School Board has hired Ray and Associates of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to assist in a national search for a long-term superintendent in the aftermath of the board's firing of Superintendent Jerry Guess last summer in a dispute over who the district's attorneys would be. Guess' salary was $215,000.
The person selected as superintendent will head a far-flung system that is on both sides of the Arkansas River and made up of the cities of Maumelle, Sherwood and parts of Little Rock and Shannon Hills, as well as smaller communities such as Wrightsville, Scott and Roland.
Now the sixth-largest district in the state, the district previously included the Jacksonville area that detached in 2016 to form the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski County school district. Leaders in Sherwood and Maumelle have taken some initial steps in recent years to similarly separate from Pulaski County Special.
Additionally, the superintendent will oversee a school system that remains a party in a 35-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit and, as such, is obligated to improve the condition of its school buildings in poor and high minority-group neighborhoods to match those of the much newer schools in more affluent and predominantly white sections.
To that end, the district is in the midst of constructing a new Mills High and will relocate Fuller Middle to a new site this summer. The district is also finishing the construction of a new Robinson Middle School and has recently started to significantly expand Sylvan Hills High.
The district is also in competition for students and state funding with a growing number of independently run public charter schools in central Arkansas.
The deadline to apply to Ray and Associates for the superintendent's job is March 12, with the board's selection of a leader to occur in April, according to a timeline offered Monday by William Newman of Mountain Home, a national executive director for Ray and Associates.
Newman said a search for a superintendent typically attracts about 70 applicants. Applicants will be screened by his company to identify the nine to 12 who best fit the characteristics desired for the district. The search firm representatives will meet with community, teacher, principal and student groups Jan. 28-29 and then with the School Board members to complete a profile for a new superintendent.
The company will provide the School Board in late March with five-minute videos from each applicant deemed to be a good match for the school system. The School Board will decide who to bring to the district for face-to-face interviews.
Newman said names of individuals brought for the interviews will not be publicly disclosed in an effort to protect their current jobs until they become finalists and are brought in for a second round of interviews.
School Board President Linda Remele, however, said that the names of all applicants to be brought in for School Board interviews should be made public.
Those selected for a second interview -- the finalists -- will be asked also to answer questions from the public at a community forum before the board makes a job offer, according to a plan offered by Newman and supported by the board.
Board members discussed at some length the salary range for the position in light of the Jacksonville detachment and the district's smaller enrollment.
Remele initially proposed $200,000 with a final amount to be negotiated with the successful candidate based on experience and meeting district criteria.
Board member Mike Kemp proposed that goals and financial incentives be built into the final contract and that the superintendent pay be based at least in part on performance.
"Like bringing in 150 students on school choice? " Remele suggested, referring to a state law that allows students to choose to attend schools in districts in which they do not live.
"I'll pay for excellence. But I'm not going to pay for mediocrity anymore," Kemp said.
Board members Brian Maune and Shelby Thomas questioned whether $200,000 was enough of an enticement when other smaller Arkansas districts are paying as much or more.
Board member Eli Keller pointed to the complexity of the district.
"This is a soup sandwich we are asking somebody to come into," Keller said. "I'd say that we should seem a little more enticing than $200,000," which led to the board's consensus on $215,000 a year.
Warren, who was the district's assistant superintendent for equity and pupil services before being the interim leader, is receiving the equivalent of an annual salary of $195,000, but adjusted for her actual length of service, which will be just short of a full school year.
Warren, 60, has a doctorate and 10 years of experience as superintendent in the Crossett School District before five years in the Pulaski County Special system.
Guess, the previous superintendent of six years, who also has a doctorate, was under contract to work for the district through June 30, 2019. A provision in his contract entitled him to six more months of his salary -- $107,500 -- after his termination.
The district will primarily advertise the superintendent's job position through state and national education associations including the American Association of School Administrators, the National Alliance of Black School Educators and the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents.
Board members agreed that the organizations for black and Hispanic education leaders was important to convey the district's interest in an ethnically and racially diverse pool of applicants for the job.
The position also will be advertised on websites hosted by Ray and Associates and by Education Week, a national publication focused on kindergarten-through-12th-grade education.
Metro on 01/09/2018