Marianna schools in state hands

The Lee County School District is operating today without an elected school board and under the direction of the Arkansas Department of Education.

The state Board of Education voted Thursday to take over the school system, dismissing local board members but leaving Superintendent Willie Murdock in place to answer to Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell.

Before the takeover, the system had been classified as academically distressed, a designation for districts in which less than 50 percent of students score at proficient or better levels on state tests.

State board members found that academic gains in Lee County are small, there was no district curriculum before this year, the faculty was divided over leadership and - as recently as January - 42 of 67 high school seniors were not on track to graduate because of course coding and scheduling problems.

State board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock, who led a board committee responsible for examining the conditions at the 880-student Lee County district, said Thursday that the board’s action on the district was precedent-setting.

“We will help,” Saviers said of the state’s relationship with troubled districts, “but we are not going to stand for years and years of chronic failure.”

A somber Murdock said after the meeting that the district will proceed with its efforts to improve.

“If they had made a decision to let me go today, I would have been fine with that. I would have been the biggest cheerleader for Lee County because that is my home.

“We have a lot of support that we’ve never had before,” she added. “We’re very happy about that.”

The Lee County district, which is based in Marianna, brings to five the number of Arkansas school districts now operating under state control.

The Mississippi River Delta school system, however, is one of only two districts labeled as academically distressed and the first district with that tag to be taken over, although the district also is expected to be placed in the state’s fiscal-distress program by the state board later this spring. Strong-Huttig is the other academically distressed district and the state board committee plans to scrutinize it in coming weeks.

The other districts currently being run by the state are Pulaski County Special, Helena-West Helena and Mineral Springs because of overspending or financial mismanagement, and Dollarway because of violation of state accreditation standards.

School districts that are identified as being in fiscal or academic distress must prepare and follow an improvement plan. The districts are in jeopardy of being merged into other districts if they fail to correct their problems within two years. In the case of districts that are taken over, the state control can extend up to five years as the result of a 2013 change in the law.

In the case of Lee County, Saviers said, it was important to make a high-impact decision so that students have the opportunity to be successful in college and careers. She said she wasn’t interested in “just tearing the Band-Aid off slowly.”

Saviers initially moved to remove both the School Board and the superintendent in Lee County, in which case Kimbrell would have appointed a new superintendent. Toyce Newton of Crossett seconded the motion.

However, board member Sam Ledbetter of Little Rock made a substitute motion to remove just the School Board and make Murdock answerable to the commissioner.

Ledbetter’s motion passed with a 5-2 vote, with Saviers and Newton voting against it. Ledbetter and fellow board members Jay Barth, Diane Zook, Mireya Reith, and board Chairman Brenda Gullett voted for it. Board member Alice Mahony abstained, saying she was torn by the issue and wondered whether the board committee looking into the district had visited it.

The committee met Monday with Murdock, the School Board president, district faculty leaders, school-improvement consultants to the district and Education Department employees, including those in the state’s agency’s recently established Office of Intensive Support.

Gullett and Ledbetter questioned Murdock about her willingness to work with the Office of Intensive Support, particularly in the closing weeks of the school year during which budget-cutting decisions and staff layoffs must be decided.

Murdock said she has been working closely with the Intensive Support Office to increase the number of high-quality teachers and that she considers Andrew Tolbert, a former superintendent and the director of the office, to be her mentor.

Tolbert, who has the authority to make binding recommendations to districts that have been taken over by the state, told the state board that he felt confident that he could work with Murdock to accomplish the desired goals for the district. He said that she has “the right attitude” and has been supportive of the work of the Intensive Support Office.

He said the second-year superintendent inherited the problems in the district.

Kimbrell said community support for making changes in the school system is critical and that getting that support must be part of any improvement plan.

In the coming days, he said, he and the Education Department staff will work to prepare notices to employees whose contracts will be altered or eliminated for the coming school year, and will report to the board and public shortly on those efforts.

“We can fix the finances pretty easy. The other part of changing the culture of expectations and what goes on in the classroom, bell to bell, is the hard part,” Kimbrell said. “How do we change the expectation of the community and the support of the community in an area that has lost support from some community members? But the community members who are supportive can help us get that back.”

Kimbrell said the use of interim tests or “formative assessments” will make monitoring progress possible.

Gullett, the board chairman, told Murdock that she has support.

“The state board is your friend,” Gullett said. “The state Department of Education is your friend. The Office of Intensive Support is your friend. You are going to probably be hammered because you are the target of the change today.

“I hope you will rely on them for … crafting a message, and help you to respond to people who are going to be are angry and upset. This is really based for the heart of these children and their future.”