NLR hires Arkansan for schools

Board selects Rodgers chief

— The North Little Rock School Board on Wednesday unanimously selected Arkansas native and Texas educator Kelly E. Rodgers Jr. to be superintendent of the 9,000-student North Little Rock School District, effective July 1.

Rodgers, 56, a superintendent for more than 10 years in two Texas school systems, attended Wednesday’s special School Board meeting and accepted a three-year contract that includes an an-nual salary of $185,000.

“It’s truly an honor to me to be selected for the North Little Rock School District, to lead it into the future,” Rodgers told the board after the vote. “It’s coming back home. We’re excited about getting back and getting to know family and friends again.”

Rodgers nodded toward the district’s motto on the sign hanging behind the board members.

“You know our vision here is just like you have up here at the top,” he said, “‘Think World Class,’ and that’s what we are going to do - be leaders.”

Rodgers has been superintendent of the 4, 250-student Terrell Independent School District, 25 miles east of Dallas, since 2007.

A graduate of Little Rock’s Parkview High School and a music-education major at Henderson State University, he also served 5 1/2 years as superintendent in the 2,650-student Center, Texas, Independent School District.

North Little Rock board members, who interviewed five candidates over a twoweek period, met with Rodgers for about 45 minutes in executive session Wednesday before voting in public to approve a contract of employment.

“We’ve been great and now we can be even greater,” board member Dorothy “Dot” Williams said about the choice after noting that it was a “ major task” for the board to select from among the five whom she said were all highly qualified.

Board members said they liked that Rodgers characterized himself as a “transformational” leader.

“Three years ago this district started the transformational change of our buildings and facilities,” board member Scott Miller said in reference to the planning for the district’s $266 million construction and renovation program that should get under way later this year.

“I’m looking forward to the transformational change in the rest of this district,” he said about curriculum and instruction. “I truly believe we have a leader that can accomplish that.”

Board President Scott Teague said in an interview that he was sold on Rodgers’ high degree of community involvement and his “strong, structured leadership style.”

The board met in a closed session Monday to discuss the superintendent candidates butadjourned without taking any public votes on a selection.

“All is still well and on track,” Teague said about the search process Monday night, adding that board members wanted to do some additional, individual research.”

Teague on Wednesday elaborated about the Mondaynight executive session.

“We had an indication of a direction,” Teague said of the earlier session, “and so I reached out to Mr. Rodgers after the meeting and we talked a little bit and I talked to him a little more on Tuesday. He looked at his schedule as to when he might be able to come back and visit with us again. Tonight was the night that worked into his schedule.”

Asked if a job offer was made to Rodgers in those phone conversations, Teague said “No, we made it back there [in the closed session]tonight.”

The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act states that “no resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation, or motion considered or arrived at in executive session will be legal unless, following the executive session, the public body reconvenes in public session and presents and votes on the resolution, ordinance, rule, contract, regulation or motion.”

Rodgers said in an interview that he drove to North Little Rock earlier Wednesday after Teague asked to clear up some matters.

“I felt like it was going well at that point,” Rodgers said, adding that he and his wife will remain in the area the rest of this week and will attend the North Little Rock High School basketball game Friday night.

“I’m honored to be selected,” Rodgers said about leading the North Little Rock district, which has a budget that projects expenditures of $99.5 million this year and reserves of $12.8 million. The district is in the process of reducing its 21 campuses to 13 as part of the rebuilding plan.

Rodgers praised the School Board for its unity and its vision for facilities and for instruction.

He said he has drafted an entry plan detailing what he wants to accomplish for the district in his first 100 days on the job. Key to that plan, he said, will be his efforts to meet with and build relationships with community and business members.

During Rodgers’ tenure in Terrell he led the district, which has a $42 million budget, in curriculum and staffing audits that resulted in adjustments in both, and in the construction of a career and technical-education center on the district’s high school campus. The center, which required voter approval for its funding, features manufacturing, engineering and other programs that support industry and business in the area.

More recently Terrell High School received a state designation as a Texas-Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Academy that will support more project-based learning. Rodgers has said that he would like the emphasis on project-based learning and STEM subjects to expand into Terrell’s middle and elementary school grades within the next five years.

A member of Rodgers’ administrative team in Terrell said in an interview last week that Rodgers has guided into the 21st century a district that had on his arrival in 2007 very little technology and relied heavily on teacher lectures for instruction.

Terrell Assistant Superintendent Darla Pollard said Rodgers has worked to make education relevant for students.

She also said the saxophonist and former band director in the Texarkana, Texas, school system is known to occasionally surprise faculty and staff members with a rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Rodgers is a former president of the Terrell Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to a degree in music education from Henderson, Rodgers has a master’s degree in educational administration from East Texas State University and has done additional postgraduate studies.

After his first job in Texarkana, Rogers taught two years in Pleasant Grove, Texas, before becoming an assistant principal in 1988 and principal in 1990 in that district. In 1997 he became assistant superintendent in DeKalb, Texas, where his responsibilities included helping to rebuild elementary and high school campuses that were struck by a tornado in 1999. His first superintendent’s job in 2002 was in the Center, Texas, system.

Rodgers and his wife Gail, a retired teacher, have three adult sons. Rodgers’ mother, his sister and other family members live in Arkansas.

The board was assisted in the search by the McPherson & Jacobson executive recruiting company of Omaha, Neb.

Other candidates interviewed by the board were Bobby Acklin, the North Little Rock district’s assistant superintendent for desegregation; Rhonda Dickey, the district’s director of secondary education; Larry Smith, superintendent of the White Hall School District; and Belinda Shook, superintendent of the Beebe School District.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/31/2013

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