District report set for Tuesday airing
The Pulaski County Special School District will share its state-required annual report with the public at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the district’s administrative office building, 925 E. Dixon Road.
The annual report addresses student achievement over the past school year and issues related to the district’s operation.
The report is typically given at a district school board meeting. However, the Pulaski County Special district was taken over by the state in June 2011 and the School Board dissolved.
Tuesday’s meeting is a rare opportunity for the general public to meet with district leaders about the state’s third-largest school system.
Anti-bullying goal of Nov. 9 meeting
Students from the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts will be among the featured guests and performers at a Nov. 9 event at the Clinton Presidential Center to raise awareness about bullying that occurs in schools.
The National Education Association/Arkansas Education Association Education support professionals of central Arkansas is hosting the Build Communities Not Bullies event, which will be from 1 to 3:30 p.m.
Superintendents of the three school districts, along with support-staff employees in the school systems, will be honored during the event for their efforts to help erase bullying in the public schools. Miss Arkansas Amy Crain and Phyllis Yvonne Stickney also will be featured.
Informational booths on anti-bullying, food vendors and free T-shirts for children will be part of the festival.
2nd-term member named president
Greg Adams is the new president of the Little Rock School Board, filling the position held this past year by Dianne Curry, who will remain a board member.
Adams, who was just elected unopposed to a second three-year term to the board’s Zone 4 seat, is the director of Pediatric Palliative Care Service and the Center for Good Mourning at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He and his wife have a daughter who is a college student and a son who attends Central High School.
LR district hosts meeting Monday
The Little Rock School District and Superintendent Dexter Suggs are hosting a town-hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Southwest Community Center, 6401 Base Line Road.
The session is one in a series of public forums that Suggs is conducting across the city during the current school year.
Turned down offer, Suggs tells board
Dexter Suggs, superintendent of the Little Rock School District since July 1, said last week that he’s rejected an offer from another district to buy out his newly minted, three-year contract.
Suggs said he wanted to alert the Little Rock School Board to the offer and his decision before word reached board members via another source.
Suggs grew up in St. Louis but spent most of his career up to this point in the Indianapolis area. He was chief of staff in the Indianapolis School District when he was selected earlier this year for the top job in the 25,000-student Little Rock system.
Suggs declined to name the district that approached him. He said he has promised to be a long-term superintendent in Little Rock and has told students in his visits to Little Rock’s middle and high schools that he intends to be back to see them. He also said he likes Little Rock and has found people to be friendly.
Steps to teaching offered Saturday
Arkansans interested in becoming teachers are invited to learn more about the process at the Arkansas Department of Education’s Becoming an Arkansas Teacher event, 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Holiday Inn-Airport, 3201 Bankhead Drive.
High school and college students, in addition to Arkansans who have a noneducation degree, could be eligible for financial-aid programs, teacher certification master’s degree programs and the Arkansas Department of Education’s Arkansas Professional Pathway to Educator Licensure program.
Representatives of teacher education programs at colleges and universities also will be available at the teacher fair to talk to those interested in becoming teachers.
“We are very excited about this annual teacher recruitment effort,” Department of Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said. “The need for teachers continues to grow, especially in the math and science fields. This event will give interested Arkansans the opportunity to learn how they can fill this void.”
Registration for the free event can be done online at www.adetrr.eventbrite.com or by calling Misty Harp at the Education Department’s Office of Teacher Recruitment and Retention, (501) 682-6349.
Arkansas, Pages 16 on 10/27/2013