Candidates running in the Pulaski County Special School District's first School Board election since 2010 hold different views on the employment of Superintendent Jerry Guess and on the possible detachment of Maumelle and Sherwood from the district.
Fourteen candidates are running for seven board seats in the 12,200-student district that is now exiting five years of state control -- during which there has been a state-appointed superintendent and no locally elected board.
Early voting in the School Board election, held in conjunction with the general election, is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at the Pulaski County Regional Building, 500 W. Markham St. in Little Rock. Polling places will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Election Day, at locations throughout the county.
The new School Board will inherit Guess, who has headed the district -- which was under state control for fiscal distress -- since July 2011. Guess' two-year contract, which provides for an annual salary of $215,000, expires June 30, 2018.
The board is being re-established in the aftermath of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district's formation. The separation of Jacksonville from the Pulaski County Special district has prompted leaders in other communities to talk about separating once the Pulaski County Special district is released from federal court supervision of its desegregation efforts. There is no set date for that release.
Shannon Hills Mayor Mike Kemp is unopposed for election in the district's Zone 1, which includes territory in Saline County. His top priority is serving students, he said, adding he has the "utmost confidence in Dr. Guess." Kemp, 59, said he would like to see changes made in the district's boundary lines so that all students from Saline County will be able to attend Saline County schools.
"I really don't think any of Saline County should be part of the Pulaski County Special district," Kemp said.
Mildred Tatum and Tina Ward are running in the district's southeast and east sections for the Zone 2 seat. Tatum, who was on the board for 29 years before it was dissolved in 2011, said she wouldn't like the loss of students that would come with allowing parts of the district to detach or form their own districts.
"But the fact that we did it for one, we would have to do it for the other," Tatum said, referring to the precedent set by allowing Jacksonville to detach.
Tatum, 76, said she doesn't know Guess well and doesn't have an opinion on his future employment, but that "down through the years, I've always been able to work with the superintendent."
Tatum, a grocery store owner, said it is not a board member's place to tell a superintendent how to operate, but that the board does hire a superintendent to make certain changes and accomplish certain tasks. She said she doesn't know what directives Guess has been given.
Ward, a 48-year-old human resources generalist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said in an interview that she had not met Guess and didn't know whether she would want a change in leadership.
"I guess he had a task to fulfill," Ward said, adding that it will be good for the superintendent to hear from new School Board members about the students in their communities.
Gloria Lawrence and Linda Remele, both of Sherwood, are vying for the board's Zone 3 seat. Lawrence, 62, a retired 28-year teacher, said last week at a Maumelle forum sponsored by GateHouse Media that she would not vote to retain Guess as the superintendent.
"The first thing he did when he came on board was cut teacher salaries," Lawrence said, adding that some teachers lost thousands of dollars in pay, which resulted in financial hardships and low morale to the detriment of student achievement. She said the new board needs to be able to collaborate with a superintendent to ensure student and district success.
Lawrence said student achievement and financial stability in the district are priorities for her, as is the release from the federal court supervision of desegregation efforts. A court declaration of unitary status will put Sherwood residents in a position to decide whether they want a separate school district, she said.
Remele, a retired deputy superintendent in the district, is co-chairman of the Sherwood Education Foundation, which is coordinating efforts to eventually form a Sherwood district when that option becomes available.
"In the future, we definitely want our own Sherwood district, but right now we want the best through the Pulaski County Special School District," she said. "That is the vehicle we are using."
Remele, 65, said in an interview that she is "absolutely not running on a ticket to change the superintendent."
"I am not willing to start back over at ground zero with desegregation. Dr. Guess now understands Pulaski County and its history with this decades-long [desegregation] case, and I would like us to stay the course until we get out of the lawsuit," she said. "We had a litany of people who didn't understand how important Plan 2000 was and ignored what needed to be done. That is why we are still in the lawsuit and Little Rock and North Little Rock are out." Plan 2000 is the district's federal court-approved desegregation plan.
Cori Burgett Fetters, Leonard Smith and Shelby Thomas are vying for the Zone 4 seat that represents a part of Sherwood. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes cast, then a runoff between the top two vote-getters will be Nov. 29.
Fetters, 52, said she is open to a new Sherwood district as long as teachers and support staff do not lose jobs or have to take pay cuts.
"I don't want things to be hurt because of a split. I want things to be better because of a split," Fetters said. "I would want to see the data. If they can't prove it's better, I would not say, 'Let's leave.'"
As for the district's chief executive, Fetters said she doesn't anticipate making a change before Guess' contract expires in 2018. She said she would like to then open the job to all interested applicants.
"I'm not going to say I'm 100 percent in agreement with Dr. Guess' side of things," said Fetters, a homemaker and former owner of a craft and scrapbooking store. "I haven't agreed with a lot of the decisions he has made. However, when his contract is up and if he wants to renew the contract, I would assume he would be welcome to go through the process of applying and interviewing that every other candidate would go through."
Smith, 41, said carving new districts out of the Pulaski County Special district has both pros and cons, and supporters on both sides.
"We have to sit down and weigh everything out and see what is most beneficial for the students, first, and then for the communities," said Smith, a contract compliance and small-business manager for Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field. "The quality of a school district drives everything in a community, from new businesses coming in to home prices."
Thomas, a 45-year-old energy specialist for Irby Electrical Distributors, said he is in favor of forming separate school districts "as long the Pulaski Special district is unitary and we make things viable for all the schools in the county."
"I think it would be a great thing for our community -- for us to be able to pull out and have our own district," he said about Sherwood.
Alicia Gillen, 39, is unopposed in her run from the district's Zone 5, which encompasses a part of Maumelle. She said that the new School Board has a lot of other decisions to make and tasks to accomplish before it considers a replacement for Guess.
Samuel Branch, a retired educator and now a Realtor, and Eli Keller, who heads the Maumelle Police Department's school resource officer division, are running for the Zone 6 seat in Maumelle.
"I will not fire Dr. Guess," Branch, 67, said at last week's forum. "Education is a state issue. He did what the state asked him to do, and I think he would do what we ask him to do."
"If not," he added, "we can hire someone else."
Keller, 39, said in an interview that he's observed Guess' visits to schools and that he appreciates him and his willingness to get out of his office and into schools without micromanaging them.
"I am a fan of Dr. Guess," Keller said. "My vote would be most certainly to keep him."
Neither Keller nor Branch is a proponent of creating new Sherwood and Maumelle districts out of the Pulaski County Special district because of the potential for leaving other areas of the existing district without adequate and equitable resources to operate.
Julian McMurray, Brian Maune and James "Jim" Jolley are running for the board's Zone 7 seat in west Pulaski County.
McMurray, 39, said last week that his top priority will be looking at leadership in the district, which may mean bringing in new people.
"There has been a festering between teachers and support staff versus the administration," he said at the forum. "It's a culture. There are things that I have witnessed taking place that should not be happening."
In an interview, McMurray, a chiropractor, said he and Guess haven't always seen eye to eye but that he would give fair scrutiny to Guess' entire body of work and "let the chips fall where they may."
Jolley, a 55-year-old administrator for the Arkansas Forestry Commission, said he sees no reason not to retain Guess because "things have gone pretty well" in the district in recent years and in the experience of his family.
Maune, an account manager for ChemTreat, said he would prefer that Guess work through the duration of his contract.
"He has relationships, knowledge and experience that we don't need to lose or delay in the next two years as the district works through the court and through this process of getting unitary," Maune, 35, said. "I'm currently for him remaining in the position."
Maune, Jolley and McMurray all had reservations about the possibility of carving out new districts without knowing the effect on all parts of the existing school system. Maune said boundaries can't change until the Pulaski County Special district is released from court supervision. McMurray said strengthening the quality of the existing district will diminish the push to form new districts.
One board member will be elected from each of the seven election zones. School Board positions are unpaid. Pulaski County Special district policy states that board terms are for four years. The newly elected board members are expected to draw for staggered term lengths so that in the future the entire board is not up for election at the same time.
A Section on 11/07/2016