Jacksonville groupstarts school drive
The Jacksonville North Pulaski Education Corps will begin its campaign for voter support for a new Jacksonville area public school system at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the city's Community Center, 5 Municipal Drive in Jacksonville.
The election on whether to carve a new district out of the existing Pulaski County Special School District is Sept. 16.
The state Board of Education ordered the election in response to a petition for a new district signed by more than 2,000 registered voters living in the area that would become the new school district.
Only voters in the boundaries of the proposed school district are eligible to vote on the formation of the district, according to state law. Voters in the other part of the Pulaski County Special School District are ineligible to vote on the proposed detachment of a Jacksonville/North Pulaski area for a new district.
Student transferslawsuit dismissed
A panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Friday dismissed as "moot" a lawsuit filed by families who sought to transfer their children out of the Blytheville School District to public schools in neighboring school systems for the now concluded 2013-14 school year.
In 2013, the Blytheville School Board exempted that district from participating in a state-permitted interdistrict school choice program for students. That was because the district was subject to a federal school desegregation order to remedy the effects of past racial segregation.
The families sued, alleging that the school district violated their constitutional rights by opting out of the student transfer program. The local district court denied the families' motion for a preliminary injunction, and the families appealed to the 8th Circuit.
The appeals court dismissed the case because the 2013-14 school year is over and "nowhere in their motion do the appellants ask the court to enjoin the district from passing further resolutions opting out of the 2013 Act."
"By the motion's own terms, the time period in which the request relief would have been effective has expired," the appeals court said. The order noted that the families never requested an expedited hearing at the appeals court level.
Personnel matterson board's agenda
The Arkansas Board of Education at its 10 a.m. meeting Thursday will be asked to approve a list of new hires and employee resignations, retirements and terminations, as it does at every monthly board meeting.
This month's list includes the recent retirement of Gloria Stephens, a public school program coordinator in the agency's communications office.
Stephens, whose work included coordinating the state's Teacher of the Year honor program, worked for the agency for 43 years, six months and 14 days.
Also on the list this month are the recent departures of Tom Kimbrell as state education commissioner and three assistant commissioners -- Megan Witonski, John Hoy and Karen Walters. Together the four worked at the Education Department a total of about 12 years. All four have gone to work for school districts and have been replaced at the department.
Metro on 08/10/2014