Six people are running for four open seats on the North Little Rock School Board in the district’s first-ever November election.
Two of the seats are contested and two are not. Incumbent Tracy Steele and Rochelle Redus are unopposed for the Zones 2 and 3 seats, respectively. In Zone 5, incumbent Cindy Temple — appointed late last year to fill a vacancy — is being challenged by LaToya Morgan. In Zone 7, Sarah Scanlon and Natalie Wankum are vying for the seat being vacated by Luke King.
The Nov. 6 school board election coincides with this year’s general election. That’s the result of Act 910 of 2017 that eliminated the annual September school board elections and gave the state’s school districts the option of holding their yearly elections in either May or in November in hopes of increasing voter participation.
Early voting for the Nov. 6 election is under way.
The election for four of the North Little Rock School Board’s seven seats comes at a time of wholesale administrative changes in the 8,000-student system, which were largely brought on by the buyout earlier this year of former Superintendent Kelly Rodgers’ final year of a three-year contract and then the dismissal the deputy superintendent, Beth Shumate.
The current board voted Oct. 18 to make Bobby Acklin, who has been interim superintendent since July 1, the district’s long-term superintendent. Acklin’s top-level staff members include a new deputy superintendent. Also new is the human resources director, elementary education director, transportation director and communications director. The district’s finance director is holding the job on an interim basis.
Candidates in the two contested races say they look forward to working with Acklin.
ZONE 5
Zone 5 incumbent Temple, 58, vice president of SP Environmental, however, did not cast a vote for Acklin’s extension earlier this month. She participated in the closed door discussion on his promotion but did not return to the board room for what turned out to be a 5-0 vote. She said later that she had not known in advance of the meeting that the superintendent matter was going to be brought up and, as a result, she was not ready for a vote.
Both Temple and Morgan, a library media specialist at Sylvan Hills Middle School in the neighboring Pulaski County Special School District, say their different life experiences give them important insights into board and district service.
“We’re spending a lot of money but not getting the results we expect, ” said Temple who has hired district graduates that don’t have satisfactory skills, including the ability to complete an application.
“There’s an issue that needs to be resolved, something’s broken. What I have to offer … is a different perspective,” she said. ” I feel like an outsider not knowing any better can come up with something better. Sometimes you have to ask a lot of questions, but you aren’t confined to a paradigm or boxed in by the way it has always been done.”
[2018 ELECTION: Full Democrat-Gazette coverage of Arkansas races]
Temple said she would like the district to develop a five-year strategic plan for raising student achievement, improving social interactions among students and ensuring the district’s financial health. The board would then hold the district staff accountable for staying on the plan. She also called for the development of a board calendar of tasks to be done so that the board members have adequate time to address issues such as the annual budget and student handbooks.
Temple and her husband, Ken, a city of Little Rock employee, have three adult sons and three grandsons, including one who attends school in the district. Temple grew up in a military family and is herself a U.S. Air Force veteran. She graduated from high school in Florida, she said, and has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Central Arkansas at Conway.
Morgan, who is single, is a graduate of Watson Chapel High School and has a bachelor’s degree in health sciences and two master’s degrees — one in early childhood education and the other is media technology — all from the University of Central Arkansas. She started her career as a non-traditionally licensed teacher at the now closed Dreamland Academy charter school in Little Rock. She also taught two years in the North Little Rock district at the now closed North Heights Elementary.
“Working as a classroom teacher I feel like I have an insider’s approach to it,” Morgan said about board service.” I see it from both the child’s side as well as the teacher’s side. I want to bring that perspective to the board.”
Morgan, 37, describes herself as passionate about children and someone who wants to promote greater unity between the district and the community, including businesses and churches, to provide students with the resources that can’t always be provided by teachers alone. She noted that only two schools in the district earned state letter grades above a C. Several factors contribute to the letter grades, including teachers, who must want to love to be at work and feel appreciated for their work.
“I truly would like to have the opportunity to represent the students, teachers, and certified staff members of North Little Rock School District,” she said. “As educators we often serve as advocates, caretakers, and even mothers, and fathers to our students. I can no longer remain silent about the state of our education system. I am dedicated to working with others who are dedicated to making positive changes to benefit all students.”
ZONE 7
Zone 7 candidates Wankum and Scanlon cite their involvement in and outside the school district as reasons they should be elected.
“I’m a servant,” Wan-kum , 3 8 , a m o t h e r o f three including two now i n d i s t r i c t schools, said l a s t w e e k . “I’ve been a servant within our community for multiple years and I would like to take that to the next level, having proven myself at this level.”
Wankum, a North Little Rock native and an administrative assistant for a dental group, is married to Jeff Wankum, an attorney.
She describes herself as a frustrated parent who sees the opportunities for change every day in the district that gets shuffled to the side. Programs such as Reading Recovery and special education services are neglected to the detriment of the students who need and deserve those supports, she said, adding that she wants to hold staff members accountable for that.
“Another reason I’m running is our budget,” she said. “I feel the state is at our back door to take us over. I’m seriously concerned about that.
She cites as an example a recent administrative proposal to pay $50,000 to a national firm with local employee to provide an ACT college exam preparation course when the district already has access to other ACT preparation programs, some free and some already bought and paid for.
“We have to be budget conscious,” she said. “I want to see, know and research things before I vote on them,” she also said.
Scanlon, 55, describes her current occupation as a political candidate coach for first- time candidates. She previously has served as an organizer for pro-union candidates. She managed U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president in Arkansas and also worked in about nine other states on his behalf.
A graduate of Nettleton High, Scanlon earned an associates degree in accounting in Washington and has taken college courses across the country. She has lived in North Little Rock since 2005. She and her wife Barbara L’Eplattenier, a faculty member at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, have a second-grader in district schools.
“I really hated school more than liked it, interestingly enough, because now I want to be back involved, she said about her experiences with education. “I hated it because of the way I was treated and the way other kids treated me. I was pretty much bullied all the way through high school and I couldn’t wait to graduate. Now I have a daughter in school and I want to make sure she didn’t experience what I did and so I’m actively involved in trying to make her learning experience positive.”
Scanlon said she would like the schools identified by the state as under-performing get the resources that will allow them to excel.
We have really wonderful schools. We have really wonderful staff and teachers but I believe they are under-resourced and they need more assistance for the job we are asking them to do,” Scanlon said about academic programs and salaries.
“The stability of having Mr. Acklin in the position of full time superintendent is good for the district,” she said, adding that she wants to see resolution of existing lawsuits against the district and warding off others.
As a board member, Scanlon said she wants to do everything possible to avoid a state take over of the district and will otherwise use her practices of listening and learning to find where she can be the most helpful to fulfilling the district’s goals.
UNOPPOSED CANDIDATES
Steele, 55, is running unopposed for re-election from Zone 2. The former state senator and current director of the Arkansas Health Services Permit Agency h a s s e r ve d a three year term. He and his wife Cassandra, a Little Rock School District program administrator, have an adult daughter and a son who is a North Little Rock district student.
Similarly, Rochelle Redus is unchallenged in her bid to represent the district’s Zone 3 on the board. Redus, 54, will replace 12-year board member Darrell Montgomery whochosenot to run for another term. Redus is a former member of the board, having held the seat from 2000 to 2006, prior to Montgomery .
Redus is a disability services counselor at Pulaski Technical College. Her husband Reginald Redus is a North Little Rock High campus supervisor and their daughter is a special education teacher at the district’s Meadow Park Elementary.
School board terms are three years and are unpaid.
arkansasonline.com/elections