State picks Kurrus for LR school chief

License, experience requirements waived to put non-educator in job

Baker Kurrus (left), with state Education Commissioner Johnny Key, said Tuesday at the Little Rock School District Administration Building that he has “big ears” and will listen to all sides and won’t impose any “my way or the highway” ultimatums as superintendent.
Baker Kurrus (left), with state Education Commissioner Johnny Key, said Tuesday at the Little Rock School District Administration Building that he has “big ears” and will listen to all sides and won’t impose any “my way or the highway” ultimatums as superintendent.

Attorney, businessman and former Little Rock School Board member Baker Kurrus is the new superintendent of the state-controlled Little Rock School District, starting today.

Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key on Tuesday appointed Kurrus to head the 24,000-student district, the state's largest, after the Arkansas Board of Education voted 7-0 at a special meeting to waive all educator licensure and experience requirements in Arkansas law, as well as state board rules that would otherwise disqualify Kurrus as a public school district superintendent.

The waiver applies only to Kurrus and is not a blanket waiver that would automatically apply to any of Kurrus' successors or to leaders in other state-controlled districts, the Education Board decided. Additionally, someone who meets the traditional requirements for a superintendent must be included on the Little Rock district's leadership team.

Key, who himself has a degree in chemical engineering and is not a state-licensed educator, said Tuesday that he believed the waiver allowing someone other than a traditionally trained educator to lead an Arkansas public school district is a first in the state.

Kurrus, 60, has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and a law degree from Harvard University, but he does not meet the state's teacher and administrator licensure and experience requirements.

In asking for the Education Board waiver, Key said he wanted "to hire an individual from the Little Rock community who has extensive, relevant experience in the Little Rock community and the Little Rock School District.

"I would like to hire someone who is a proven leader and who will engage with the Little Rock community in a collaborative way to improve education in the six academically distressed schools and the district as a whole," Key said in reference to Kurrus, who served on the Little Rock School Board for 12 years, from 1998-2010.

Key serves as the school board for the Little Rock district as the result of a state Education Board vote in January to take over the district and dismiss the locally elected School Board because six of the district's 48 schools were identified by the state as academically distressed.

That means that fewer than half of the students at the six schools -- Baseline Elementary, Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools; and J.A. Fair, Hall and McCellan high schools -- scored at proficient levels on state math and literacy exams over a three-year period.

Kurrus -- who will be paid an annual salary of $150,00 and will answer to Key -- attended the special Education Board meeting Tuesday and then addressed reporters and district staff at the school district's administration building.

He said he was grateful for the confidence shown in him by state leaders and felt he was among friends in the school system where he attended first through third grades at Jefferson Elementary, and where he and his wife sent their three children who are now grown.

"We face great challenges and I know that, but I live here and I know we can do it," Kurrus said, adding that he expects not quantum leaps but incremental progress to occur in the district starting on day one.

Kurrus said he has "big ears" and will spend his first days on the job listening to what employees, community members, Education Department specialists and former School Board members have to say. He called for a competition of good ideas, adding that he "will not be showing up with a bunch of 100-day plans and 'my way or the highway'" ultimatums. I operate much differently than that."

His plans for today include taking down the superintendent's parking sign at the district office and observing at Baseline Elementary School.

"That's where we will find out what is needed in the schools," he said.

He called teachers "the jet pilots" of the district. "Nothing happens without them," he said.

He told the Education Board that the morale in the district is at a 25-year low.

"You have to face that square up and you have to understand that we have many very, very good people. We have pockets of excellence and pockets of very high achievement, and to condemn the whole district is a mistake.

"The single most important thing to do is figure out how to motivate and energize highly skilled, highly trained, and highly experienced people who no longer feel they have a role to play in this district. They feel trapped. They feel like they have a job but nothing more. They don't see the mission associated with the work."

Key said Tuesday that he kept Gov. Asa Hutchinson informed about his efforts to find a replacement for Superintendent Dexter Suggs, who resigned suddenly April 20 in the face of allegations that he plagiarized parts of his doctoral dissertation.

Marvin Burton, the district's deputy superintendent, was appointed April 21 as interim superintendent while the search for a more long-term chief executive took place.

"Baker Kurrus provides an experienced, steady hand to guide the Little Rock School District at a difficult time," Hutchinson said in a prepared statement Tuesday afternoon.

"He's served on the Little Rock School Board, he's shown a passion for education, he understands the issues and, in sending his children to public schools, he's been personally invested in the district. Baker always has been honest and determined in his approach to make the Little Rock School District a success and do right by the children of central Arkansas. We need Baker Kurrus' experience and knowledge at this time, and we are grateful to him for taking on this challenge," Hutchinson said.

Cathy Koehler, president of the Little Rock Education Association that is a union of school district teachers and support employees, also issued a statement. She said that Kurrus "has consistently demonstrated his commitment to all students in the district" and "brings a wealth of knowledge about the district and its successes and challenges."

She said the association "looks forward to working with Mr. Kurrus on behalf of all district students and employees ... to turn challenges into opportunities."

Displaced Little Rock School Board member Jim Ross, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the state and seeks the reinstatement of the elected board, said Kurrus was "a nice man but has bad ideas."

"We've put in charge someone who has no academic experience, who was on the board when the district began to fail," Ross said. "We've got a guy in place who has made it very clear that he believes teachers have too many benefits and we need to cut those. We have a man who says that he wants to close schools on the east side of the city, continuing to advance poverty in those areas. We have a man who said he wants to listen to everybody but when given the chance to reinstate the board he became violently angry."

Before the state Education Board's unanimous vote on waiving the job qualifications, Education Board member Alice Mahony of El Dorado made a motion to reinstate the Little Rock district's elected School Board to work in partnership with Kurrus.

Kurrus called that a "terrible idea," saying that he wouldn't know who to report to -- Key or the reinstated board. The motion was defeated in a 2-to-5 board vote.

Ross said Kurrus -- who said different times Tuesday that he wants to meet with Ross -- wants no supervision.

"He wants the dictatorial powers to turn this district into what Johnny Key and the governor want," Ross said, referring to legislation that didn't pass earlier this year but would have authorized turning the management of the district or some of its schools over to independent management organizations.

"It's a bad day for teachers and kids, especially poor kids," Ross said, acknowledging that he was being negative contrary to state Education Board member Vicki Saviers' call to stop being angry and instead be positive and forward-thinking.

Saviers said she would like everyone in the city to be "as focused as possible" on the academically distressed schools and on finding national people who can help -- with Kurrus' leadership -- create success for students. She said that will take three to 10 years to accomplish.

Key, in asking the Education Board to waive the job requirements for a school district superintendent, cited the board's authority to do that under Arkansas Code Annotated 6-15-430. That is the statute that spells out the Education Board's powers in the case of a state takeover of an academically distressed district or school.

That five-page statute states that if a public school is classified as academically distressed, the state board may remove permanently, reassign or suspend on a temporary basis the superintendent of the district in which the school is located. The state Education Board can appoint an individual in place of the superintendent to operate the district under the supervision and approval of the commissioner.

Also, it specifically gives the Education Board the authority to "waive the application of Arkansas law, with the exception of the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act of 1983 ... and the Public School Employee Fair Hearing Act ... or the corresponding state board rules and regulations."

The state Education Board has rules regarding the licensure of educators and requirements in the school accreditation standards that set qualifications for school and district leaders. Failure to follow those rules can lead to a school or district's failure to meet accreditation standards and ultimately state board penalties against it. Those rules are waived in regard to Kurrus' credentials.

Before his April 20 resignation, Suggs had prepared plans for individual schools that included converting Rockefeller Elementary into a prekindergarten center and vacating the faculty at Baseline Elementary to put a greater concentration on early literacy skills. He had also proposed dividing district schools into four groups, based on the A-F letter grades received by the state and placing each group under the supervision of an academic officer.

Key said Tuesday that those plans have not been discarded but are "set over to the side" while the state department's staff does an analysis of the schools and district.

He said that not all the right questions were asked earlier about the schools and the needs of students, and so that is being done now to find the truly right answers. The Education Department's deputy commissioner, Mike Hernandez, is leading that analysis at Baseline Elementary and at Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools. Andrew Tolbert, the state's director of the office of intensive support, is leading the study at the three academically distressed high schools -- J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan.

Some of their findings could be reported to the state Education Board as soon as its May 14 meeting, Key said.

Key said that the district will proceed with the elimination of more than 60 administrative jobs that were recommended earlier. The employees received notice by a May 1 deadline.

Kurrus said he will give 110 percent to the job and no one will work harder for the district than he will.

Since last year he has worked as an independent attorney and business consultant. From 1998 to 2012, he was president and director of the The Winrock Group Inc., which included the operation of several car dealerships. He was also co-manager and co-founder of Rocket Properties, which is the developer of the Woodlands Edge residential development in west Little Rock and he was managing member of Riverside Properties, which acquired land and developed and leased car dealerships.

From 1980 to 1998, he was a partner in the Shults, Ray & Kurrus law firm.

In addition to his role as a Little Rock School Board member, he was council attorney and president of the Quapaw Area Council Inc. of the Boy Scouts of America and is currently on the board of directors for CHI St. Vincent.

"I've had an interesting life," Kurrus said Tuesday, "and it's prepared me for this."

Metro on 05/06/2015

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