Sutterfield chosen for teacher award
Spencer Sutterfield, a teacher at Little Rock's Parkview High School, was named the district's Teacher of the Year for 2015 at the annual Crystal Awards Gala last week at the Embassy Suites hotel.
In addition to earning the Marian G. Lacey Educator Award, Sutterfield was also awarded a cash prize and a gift bag from Knowledge Tree. He will receive a Dell Venue Pro that can be used as a tablet or a laptop.
Teachers representing every campus in the district were recognized during the gala. School-level winners were also named. They are:
• Summer Vaught of Central High School, High School Teacher of the Year.
• Michelle Vire of Pulaski Heights Middle School, Middle School Teacher of the Year.
• Nathalie Massenelli of Jefferson Elementary, Elementary School Teacher of the Year.
School-level winners took home cash prizes, Dell Chromebooks and gift bags from Knowledge Tree.
Car hits bus in LR; 4 taken to hospitals
Four people were hospitalized in a head-on crash involving a Pulaski County Special School District bus last week, the Pulaski County sheriff's office said.
Emergency personnel responded shortly before 7 a.m. April 29 to 14700 Cooper Orbit Road, a two-lane street south of Kanis Road in west Little Rock. Diane Pride said she'd been driving the bus west when a 2014 Nissan Maxima traveling in the opposite direction crossed the centerline and struck the bus, according to a sheriff's office report.
Pride was taken to Baptist Health Medical Center for treatment. Two children on the bus were not injured.
The sheriff's office identified the driver of the Maxima as Channing Lewis. Deputies reported that she was taken to UAMS Medical Center and underwent surgery.
Two children in the Maxima were taken to Arkansas Children's Hospital. One of them suffered a "critical head injury," the report states. The other child was not injured but was taken to the hospital for observation.
Ages and other personal information of those involved in the crash were not available.
Investigators found the front seat belts of the Maxima were not buckled before the crash, according to the sheriff's office.
Lewis was cited for driving left of center, careless driving, no seat belt and no child-safety restraint.
Parties in suit fight addition of district
Both the Pulaski County Special School District and the Joshua intervenors, who represent black students in a 32-year-old school desegregation lawsuit, said last week that they oppose making the new Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District a party in the lawsuit.
Attorneys for the new district had asked U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. at an April hearing to be made a defendant party that is separate from the Pulaski County Special District.
Patrick Wilson, an attorney for the Jacksonville/North Pulaski district, told the judge that the new district needs to be a party and no longer have to rely on the Pulaski County Special district "to tell our story" in the case.
Marshall said the new district will be a separate party in the case once the two districts separate next year. But in the meantime, the judge wondered, "how can part of one party be a party?" in the lawsuit.
State Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, an attorney who represents the Joshua intervenors, said in written arguments to the judge on Friday that he feared the state of Arkansas and the Jacksonville district "have no intention" of promptly addressing the need for improved school facilities in the new district. He said there must be a commitment on time and money for the buildings that is approved by the judge.
"Until then, as it is now, JNPSD is a nuisance which retards Joshua and the PCSSD from facilitation and otherwise expediting achievement of the remaining obligations" of the Pulaski County Special district's desegregation Plan 2000, Walker wrote.
Metro on 05/07/2015