LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock School Board voted 4-3 Thursday against extending Superintendent Linda Watson’s contract beyond its current June 30, 2011, expiration date.
The vote puts the board in a ready position to spend this school year conducting a search for a new chief executive for the state’s largest district of 26,700 students.
But the board did not discuss such a search during the meeting. And in an interview after the meeting, School Board President Charles Armstrong left the door open for another board vote on extending Watson’s contract - possibly after the board and Little Rock School District employees begin work next month with consultants on leadership and other matters related to carrying out the district’s new strategic plan.
“The board has not renewed her contract, but that is not saying she won’t be superintendent from now on,”said Armstrong, one of four board members who voted against a proposed one-year contract extension for Watson.
“It doesn’t mean she was fired. Her contract is still good for one year. We are going to take baby steps at this time. We haven’t thought about starting a search. She could play a significant role in this. We have a lot of stuff to work out, and it’s not that we are going to rush into a search. We have a consultant coming in and a lot depends on that consultant.”
Others voting against the extension were Jody Carreiro, Melanie Fox and Baker Kurrus.
Armstrong said he would have preferred that the board would not have taken any action on the contract Thursday, but the issue was put on the agenda for a vote by board member Micheal Daugherty. He and board members Katherine Mitchell and Dianne Curry voted for a one-year extension of the contract to June 30, 2012.
Watson said in an interview after the meeting that she was not caught by surprise by the vote nor was she terribly dismayed by it,saying she has been through far worse in her life and she was proud of the accomplishments of her administration.
Those accomplishments, she said, included improved student achievement, financial solvency, facilities in good condition and a new elementary school. She said the district was not routinely displayed in the news media as being in disarray.
“The Little Rock School District has not had a superintendent for four [consecutive] years - and I’ll have a fourth year - since 1986 or 1987,” Watson said. “I had the common sense of knowing that when you come into these positions all across the country, they are often for only two or three years. I am fortunate and humbled that they let me stay here for this long.
“I’m proud of the work that we’ve done. Test scores are up. When I came into the [job] that was my main focus, that I would concentrate on test scores. I can leave here proud knowing that we ... made a difference.”
Scores last spring improved 1 to 10 percentage points over the district’s 2009 results at every grade except one. And the Little Rock districts’ gains equaled or, more often, outpaced the statewide achievement gains in 11 of the 13 tested areas.
But the percentages of district students scoring at proficient or better levels on the state math and literacy tests were 7 to 20 percentage points lower than the statewide averages.
Watson said Thursday that she intends to keep working “and earn my pay. Our test scores are going to go up even higher. I’m still going to be hands on.
“I’ve been through worse than this,” she said. “God has me, and I’ll be fine.”
Daugherty said he asked for a vote on the contract extension because the district’s policy states that the superintendent’s contract may be renewed annually at the time of re-election, which he said is generally July 1.
There was no other discussion of the matter during Thursday’s meeting, but the board had been working for the past few months on Watson’s evaluation and had met with her in closed session last month to give her an opportunity to talk about her accomplishments.
Arkansas’ public school district superintendents are permitted by law to have three-year contracts with their school districts. School boards typically extend a superintendent’s contract after the completion of each work year so the chief executives have the security of an ongoing three-year contract.
The Little Rock board did not extend Watson’s contract last year, leaving her with only two years and signaling problems between her and a majority of the board.
Carreiro on Thursday declined to explain his concerns about Watson’s job performance.
“I had a long list of things, good and bad, that I presented to the superintendent and, based on that, I made my decision,” he said. “And that’s all I can say because, if I said more, I would be talking about personnel issues and I don’t think that would be right.”
Mitchell, one of Watson’s strongest supporters, said that a year ago the board stressed to Watson its desire that she concentrate on raising student achievement, and the 2010 student test results indicated that was done.
“There was a good increase in every category,” Mitchell said. “She deserved an extension. She did what we asked her to do.”
Fox said she expects the board to conduct a search for a new chief executive, possibly with the assistance of the consulting team that is headed by Carl A. Cohn, the president of Urban School Imagineers and a former award-winning superintendent, and two of his associates. Cohn previously headed the San Diego and Long Beach, Calif., public school systems.
“We have Linda Watson here until June,” Fox said. “I think we take our time and develop a very thoughtful and inclusive process on doing a superintendent’s search.”
Watson, who will turn 57 on Monday, earns an annual salary of $198,000. She became interim superintendent of the district with its budget of more than $300 million in August 2007. Her appointment came in the wake of the board’s decision to remove then-Superintendent Roy Brooks from the job.
In March 2008, a racially split board voted 4-3 to hire Watson on a long-term basis without opening up the job to other applicants. Voting for Watson’s contract then were Armstrong, Daugherty, Curry and Mitchell.
Carreiro is the only person new to the seven-member board since that March 2008 vote. Two board positions are open for election this year when voters go to the polls Sept. 21. Kurrus is not seeking re-election. Daugherty filed earlier Thursday as a candidate for re-election. The filing period for both positions closes at noon today.
An employee in the Little Rock district since 1987, Watson has had a tenure as district chief that has been marked by frequent School Board member challenges to her proposals and rare unanimous votes for them.
On the other hand, Watson has had unusually strong support from employees, particularly the Little Rock Education Association, the new name for what was the Little Rock Classroom Teachers Association, and its membership of teachers and support staff. Historically, the association has been quick to publicly challenge whoever was superintendent.
Cathy Koehler, association president, was visibly angry and refused to be interviewed after the board’s vote. She told board members earlier in the meeting that the district has important tasks to accomplish. She urged them to do nothing that would disrupt the trust and spirit of collaboration that exists between district administrators and employees.
Most recently, Watson appointed and worked closely with the Strategic Planning Commission of government, education and business leaders to recommend goals and action plans for improving student achievement in the district. The committee and its consultants recommended for the board’s ultimate approval a set of what they described as “ambitious, eyepopping goals” for student achievement, staffing and employee salaries.
The process, however, was not entirely smooth.
The citizen committee’s co-chairmen - former state Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, and community activist Terence Bolden - resigned before the draft plan was presented to community groups and to the School Board, saying that they had wearied of Watson’s lack of trust in them and her efforts to control the process.
During her tenure, Watson has seen the proliferation of state-approved, independently run public charter schools in the county that have pulled students and resources from the traditional public schools and divided the board on whether to legally challenge the state Board of Education over its role in establishing the schools.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/23/2010