LITTLE ROCK — The question of union representation for teachers is shaping up to be a key issue in at least one of the races for election to the School Board for the Pulaski County Special School District.
And the outcome of the Sept. 21 election could shift the board’s position on the issue.
The deadline for filing as a candidate for open school board seats in Pulaski County and throughout Arkansas is noon Friday. In Pulaski County, there are two seats open on each of the Little Rock and Pulaski County Special boards and three seats on the North Little Rock School Board.
In Pulaski County Special, Tom Stuthard of Jacksonville, the husband of a district teacher who is a union member, has filed as a candidate for the board’s Zone 5 position against incumbent Danny Gililland.Zone 5 encompasses extreme north Pulaski County, including the Gravel Ridge area.
Newcomer Gloria Lawrence of Sherwood, a recently retired teacher and union member, is the only person who has yet filed for the district’s Zone 4 seat, which covers Sherwood. But incumbent Charlie Wood is expected to do so.
Asked Wednesday whether the district’s teachers should continue to be represented by the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers, Stuthard said that it is his wife who is an association member and not he.
“But yes,” he added about union representation for teachers. “Yes, I think they have a say-so in this matter, yes.”
Gililland, 52, the father of four college students and owner of Popeye’s restaurants in central Arkansas, is one of four current members of the seven-member board who has voted repeatedly to withdraw recognition of the association as the teachers’ bargaining agent.
Instead, the board is attempting to put into place a teacher contract that would be approved by the School Board with input from a Personnel Policies Committee, the majority of whose members are elected by district teachers.
There have been some hiccups in those efforts. Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox has twice ruled that the board has the authority to cut ties to the union but has failed so far to meet the legal prerequisites to do so.
The union-negotiated contract is to remain in place this school year, although Fox has directed leaders of the district and union to meet together to consider any changes to which they can mutually agree.
Stuthard, 55, is retired from the U.S. Air Force, where his last position was an equipment control officer, and he is now a maintenance mechanic for the U.S. Postal Service.
He graduated from Ravenna High School in Ravenna, Mich. In 1974, he moved to Arkansas. He has a bachelor’s degree in recreation and a master’s degree in counseling from Henderson State University.
He is married to Sharon Stuthard, a math teacher at Sylvan Hills High School. The Stuthards are the parents of two grown children. Son Jeremy of Fayetteville graduated from North Pulaski High in 2002, and daughter Jennifer graduated from Sylvan Hills High in 2004.
Stuthard said his purpose in running for the board would be, in part, to change the district’s negative image that is portrayed to the public through media.
Along with that, he said, he would like to see the School Board “put aside the personal agendas and get things done for what is most important in this district, and that is the children.”
Lawrence, 56, who has just ended a 27 1 /2-year district career - most recently as a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Sylvan Hills Middle School - said she would like to see the teacher association continue to represent teachers in contract talks.
“I’m a proud member of my teacher professional organization,” Lawrence said. “There is no way I’ll sidestep that, but it’s not any different from being a member of your engineering profession or anything else.”
Wood, an electrical engineer and the current board member from Sherwood, is one of the four current board members who favors severing ties with the teachers association. He has said he plans to run unless someone files who has an ideology similar to his on a range of issues.
Lawrence is a native of Marvell in Phillips County and has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from Arkansas State University.
She and her husband, Jim Lawrence, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and now an industrial chemicals salesman, have three grown children who graduated from district schools, and six grandchildren - three of whom attend district schools.
Elsewhere in Pulaski County, only Greg Adams has filed as a candidate for the Little Rock School Board. He is running from Zone 4 for a seat now held by Baker Kurrus, who is not going to run for re-election.
Additionally, Little Rock’s Zone 2 seat now held by Micheal Daugherty is open for election in the central part of the city. Daugherty has said he intends to run for a sixth term.
In North Little Rock, only Dorothy “Dot” Williams has filed for re-election for one of three available seats. A retired district teacher and administrator, Williams is running in Zone 1. The zone covers a large area, of which most is east of Interstate 30 and north of Lynch Drive.
Other seats open are the North Little Rock district’s Zone 4 seat held by Ron Treat and the Zone 6 seat held by Bobby Gosser. Both Treat and Gosser have said they plan to run for election.
Zone 4 covers an area generally between MacArthur Drive and Camp Robinson Road. Zone 6 generally covers an area north of West H Avenue, between Arkansas 107 and U.S. 67/167.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 07/22/2010