LITTLE ROCK — Michael Nellums will take Micheal Daugherty’s spot on the Little Rock School Board after unseating the five-term incumbent in Tuesday’s election.
Nellums, a principal in the neighboring Pulaski County Special School District, previously lost to Daugherty in a 2007 race for the same position.
“This has afforded folks an opportunity to say, ‘I want to stay where we are’ or ‘I want to go in a new direction,’” Nellums said Tuesday after learning he’d won. “They’ve said they want to go in a new direction.”
Nellums won 57.79 percent of the vote Tuesday.
Complete but unofficial results were: Nellums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .371 Daugherty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
The Daugherty-Nellums race was the only contested race in the Little Rock election.
John Gregory Adams ran unopposed for the Zone 4 seat representing northwest Little Rock. He will replace incumbent Baker Kurrus, who served on the board for 12 years. Adams got 57 votes.
Nellums, a principal at Mills University Studies High School, said his initial focus on the board will be “getting a rein on programs that are ineffective or aren’t working,” and working to prepare the Little Rock School District for a potential loss of state revenue as enrollment continues to shift to developing charter schools in Pulaski County.
He said he’d like to focus resources on early reading and math programs to set children on a path for later academic achievement.
“I’m excited about the opportunity,” Nellums said. “It offers a lot of potential to make some positive change.”
Nellums said during the campaign for the election that he’d need to study several is-sues Daugherty supported before determining whether he agreed.Those issues include legal action against the Arkansas Department of Education.
The Little Rock School Board is trying to enforce a 1989 agreement between the state and parties in the Pulaski County school desegregation case. The issue for Little Rock is the state’s unconditional approval of independently run public charter schools in Pulaski County.
District leaders have argued that charter schools are hindering desegregation efforts in violation of the 21-year-old agreement in the school-desegregation lawsuit.
They contend that charter schools are drawing high-performing, affluent students from the district, leaving it with fewer financial resources to serve a greater concentration of poor and underachieving students.
Nellums also said he’d have to review Superintendent Linda Watson’s performance evaluations before determining whether he’d support renewing her contract, which expires at the end of the school year.
Daugherty called for a vote to renew Watson’s contract, a measure that failed.
The candidates were most verbal about their disagreements about the role of teachers’ unions.
Daugherty received financial support from members of several union groups, including the leader of the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers, which represents teachers in the Pulaski County Special School District, where Nellums is a principal.
Nellums has publicly disagreed with that union. He has said that the organization sometimes considers the concerns of teachers at the expense of students’ needs.
School Board member terms are for three years in Little Rock. Board members do not earn salaries.
The candidates shared the ballot with the Little Rock School District’s current 46.4-mill property-tax rate. The district proposed no change in the tax rate.
The unofficial results: For . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .654 Against . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Article 14, Section 3 of the Arkansas Constitution requires school districts to put their tax rates on the ballot annually.
If no change is proposed, voters are asked to vote on the current rate. In that case, no matter what voters decide, the school district’s millage rate will remain at the levels last approved by voters.
Although the vote tally doesn’t change the tax rate this year, votes on tax rates are sometimes viewed as a gauge of public support or dissatisfaction with a school system.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 09/22/2010