PINE BLUFF -- The Pine Bluff School District is laying off 68 employees in June in an effort to save money after years of financial and enrollment declines, interim Superintendent T.C. Wallace Jr. said Wednesday.
The Pine Bluff School Board appointed Wallace to lead the district earlier this month after firing Linda Watson, who had served since 2012. A reason for Watson's termination has not been given, and she is expected to appeal.
Wallace said he regrets that employees who will lose their jobs found out through media reports Wednesday morning instead of through official district channels, adding that it "is just short of tragic. This is not how the Pine Bluff School District wishes to conduct business, and my apologies go out to all of the employees."
Although further job losses are not expected in the near future, Wallace assured employees that those affected will receive the first notifications if layoffs occur.
The board approved the layoffs at a meeting Tuesday night, saying the reduction in force would provide the district's budget with an additional $3.1 million annually. Most of the layoffs are a result of the closing of two schools, Oak Park Elementary and Southeast Elementary, Wallace said.
"We reached a point where we needed to right-size the district," he said. "With declining enrollment, we have not seen a reduction in our workforce, so this is the corresponding result. We have known for quite some time that we have been overstaffed."
District documents show it has lost 445 students since 2011, resulting in a loss of more than $1.9 million in state funds. Student losses have mirrored Pine Bluff's decade-long population decline. Since 2000, the city has lost about 10,000 residents, according to census figures. The city's current population estimate is less than 49,000, census officials have said.
Both Southeast and Oak Park elementary schools have had steep enrollment declines over the past several years.
Under the closure proposal, the district's remaining elementary schools -- Southwood, Broadmoor, Thirty-Fourth Avenue and W.T. Cheney -- will enroll students from kindergarten through fourth grade. Those schools and Oak Park Elementary currently house students up to fifth grade.
Next year, all fifth-graders will be moved to Belair Middle School, which currently enrolls students in sixth and seventh grades. All sixth-graders will remain at Belair next year, but seventh-graders will be moved to Jack Robey Junior High School. That school currently enrolls students in eighth and ninth grades.
Ninth-graders will be moved to Pine Bluff High School starting next year.
Wallace said he has been contacted by many parents who are concerned about the district's stability after Watson's firing. He said Wednesday that he hopes to ease nerves and steer the district in a new direction.
"We are putting academics first, and parents are our partners in that," Wallace said. "We think that with our new strategies, we will see a brand-new district with increasing enrollment in the future. I believe strongly in that."
Around Pine Bluff on Wednesday afternoon, some expressed frustration with district officials.
"Firing a superintendent without reason, then laying off people without properly notifying them makes me really question our leadership at the district," said Greg Loggins, whose son attends 10th grade at Pine Bluff High School. "If these were students, I'd give them an F."
Jill Landers, whose children are grown but once attended school in Pine Bluff, also said she was disappointed by the way the district handled the layoffs and would like to know why Watson was fired.
"No one likes a cloak of secrecy, and that's what we have here," Landers said.
State Desk on 04/23/2015