Daily progress soon, LR school chief says

Annie Abrams chats with Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus on Tuesday during his appearance at a Political Animals Club gathering in Little Rock.
Annie Abrams chats with Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus on Tuesday during his appearance at a Political Animals Club gathering in Little Rock.

Baker Kurrus, the Little Rock School District superintendent since May, said Tuesday he expects immediate, daily improvement in the state-controlled school system where people are being empowered to do their jobs and being held responsible for the results.

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Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus speaks Tuesday at the Political Animals Club at the governor’s mansion in Little Rock.

Speaking at the Governor's Mansion to a Political Animals Club audience of about 200, the Harvard University-trained attorney and former 12-year School Board member said he is working 16 hours a day to build a sustainable public school organization, and he needs help in doing that from one and all.

"Get in the boat and paddle in the same direction," Kurrus said about the effort required in a 24,000-student district where he said people have more typically paddled against each other or even poked holes in the boat.

Longtime civic activist Annie Abrams told Kurrus she wanted to be a stockholder in his "company."

"When do I get my dividends?" she asked.

"Progress has to be immediate," Kurrus responded.

"It may be incremental but it has got to be immediate," he said and offered J.A. Fair High and Baseline Elementary schools as examples of campuses that are going to be different next school year in their principals, their operations and even in appearance. "I'm looking for improvement every day. Every day needs to be a little bit better than the day before."

Parent Toney Orr asked why he should believe Kurrus any more than past superintendents in the district who sounded good but didn't always deliver.

"It has to be real," Kurrus agreed. "Don't believe me until you see it."

Another audience member asked whether the Little Rock Education Association employee union was on board with Kurrus' plans. Kurrus said he talks to union leaders and teachers daily.

"I don't vilify them," he said "I don't mince words. We just talk. We've established some common goals. We want to work together. I value teachers. It's essential that we work with our teachers. I find it interesting that so many superintendents didn't."

The new superintendent said he has found in the district good, well-paid educators who didn't have the freedom to do their jobs, and some great schools, and smart, polite and delightful students at schools such as Baseline, J.A. Fair and McClellan High that are not always held in as high of a regard as Central and Parkview high schools.

He said employee morale -- initially morguelike -- is improving, that Forest Park and Roberts elementary schools are full, Terry and Bale elementaries are academic successes despite high percentages of children from low-income families, and that the district's pre-kindergarten program "is the envy of the nation."

"We can do it, and we are doing it," he said about academic achievement.

But he also said that more must be done to help all children learn to read in elementary school, before they get to high school where poor readers will find other ways -- destructive ones -- to distinguish themselves if they can't perform academically. He urged the community to embrace those students who have the greatest needs and to go to where students and problems are to help.

"Tough love doesn't work unless love comes first," he said.

Kurrus, who isn't a professional educator but has experience in managing organizations and large budgets, said he is taking some of his cues in running the district from the Apple computer company whose late founder Steve Jobs understood that simpler is better when making and improving products.

"We're going to have clear goals," Kurrus said. "We are going to delegate resources. We are going to find people who accept responsibility, willingly and happily, and we're not going to punish them when they fail. We are going to lift them up and help them when they fail. And then we are going to have a better school district.

"I promise you I will not do this job by myself. If I don't have your help, every single person in this room's help, we will fail together. But I hope we will succeed, and I hope you will be with us."

In his talk that started off with his singing "I've been so many places in my time," a line from "A Song for You" by Leon Russell, Kurrus also reintroduced the idea of building new campuses in the district.

A districtwide building plan was being pursued by the Little Rock School Board but got shelved when the Arkansas Board of Education took control of the Little Rock district in January and dissolved the School Board because six of the district's 48 schools are state-classified as academically distressed as the result of chronically low student test scores.

Kurrus suggested that the district could realize as much as $235 million for buildings within a few years by cutting operating costs by $12 million in this coming school year and another $12 million to $15 million in 2016-17. That resulting savings could be paired with the final $37 million in state desegregation aid in 2017-18. That total combined with revenue from the district's 12.4 mills for debt service tax would provide for buildings. That debt service mill money is currently going in large part to operating costs, Kurrus said.

"For a district our size, we have ignored our facilities, by and large," Kurrus said. "We really need modern buildings. Modern buildings are different than old buildings just in the way they are laid out and the Internet connections and the media rooms. Everything like that needs to be fresh and brand new if you are really going to do the job."

Kurrus said the Little Rock district, with its 44.6-mill tax rate and $3.3 billion in assessed property value, has the resources to make a big difference if the community wants to do that.

"Do you want big new buildings or are you happy with what you have?" he asked.

Metro on 06/24/2015

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