Salas-Ford chosen to be chief of staff
Courtney Salas-Ford, an attorney in the Arkansas Department of Education, has been named the agency's chief of staff by state Education Secretary Jacob Oliva.
A graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, Salas-Ford has worked for more than 14 years at the state agency. She began as a staff attorney, was named deputy general counsel in 2016 and chief legal counsel in 2020.
In those roles, she has specialized in the areas of education for students with disabilities, school safety and equal protections for students.
Salas-Ford replaces Gina Windle in the role. Windle, who served as chief of staff since September 2017, left the state agency last month to become director of governmental affairs for Arkansas Tech University.
Schools chief gets 1-year extension
The Little Rock School Board on Thursday approved a one-year extension to Superintendent Jermall Wright's contract, giving him a three-year contract that will expire June 30, 2026.
The contract extension, which is a common practice for school superintendents in good standing with their school boards, follows the Little Rock board's vote in February to give Wright a 4% pay raise effective July 1, his first anniversary in the system.
The new salary will be $249,600, His current salary is $240,000.
LR board approves four appointments
The Little Rock School Board late last week approved recommendations from Superintendent Jermall Wright for filling four new leadership positions in the district.
Shana Spriggs Loring, Amy B. Cooper and Karen Bradshaw will be assistant superintendents for school performance. Hal Harris will be the executive director for leadership development.
The appointments are the latest development in Wright's draft plan to organize school campuses into three tiers of academic support based on each school's state-applied A-to-F letter grade.
The proposal calls for "priority," "on-watch" and "autonomous" schools.
The three-tiered system of support for the district schools comes at a time when the 21,000-student capital city school system has 25 schools with state grades of Ds or Fs, six schools with As and Bs, and six schools with Cs.
Loring is currently the district's executive director of teaching and learning and director of secondary education. She will will oversee Network #1 schools -- which are secondary schools.
Bradshaw, formerly part of the Conway School District, will oversee the Network #2 schools, which are elementary schools that are categorized as "autonomous" or "on-watch" based on student achievement.
Cooper, principal at Forest Heights K-8 STEM Academy and Hall STEAM Magnet High, will oversee the Network #3 schools, which will consist of the district's high need, "priority" elementary schools.
Harris has recently been managing director of schools for the ScholarMade Achievement Place, an open enrollment charter school in Little Rock. Previously, he was senior director, program implementation and adjunct trainer corps for New Leaders Org.
3 charter transfers upheld by board
The Arkansas Board of Education last week upheld decisions made earlier by the state's Charter Authorizing Panel that allow the transfer of three open-enrollment charter school campuses from one charter school operator to another.
As a result of the Education Board votes, Arkansas Lighthouse Charter Schools will transfer its two Lighthouse campuses in Pine Bluff and one in North Little Rock to Friendship Education Foundation.
Lighthouse Charter Schools will continue to operate its three charter campuses in Jacksonville. The organization's enrollment cap for the three remaining schools will be 1,894.
Friendship Education Foundation is the management organization for Friendship Aspire Academies of Arkansas, which has campuses in Pine Bluff and Little Rock. The enrollment cap for the Friendship Aspire system is newly increased by 500 to accommodate the transferred Lighthouse campuses. The new enrollment cap will be 2,785.
The campus transfers will become official at the end of this current school year.