New Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus on Thursday outlined problems he sees in the district and called for broad-based community involvement and new approaches to bettering troubled schools as he begins his tenure leading the state's largest district.
The state took over the Little Rock district in January and last month parted ways with its previous leader, Dexter Suggs, who had been accused of plagiarizing parts of his doctoral dissertation.
Kurrus, a Little Rock attorney and businessman who previously served on the Little Rock School Board, was hired as superintendent last week.
On Thursday, Kurrus made his first address to the state Board of Education, updating the members about plans and initial efforts to better achievement in the Little Rock district. The state took it over after six of its schools were classified as being in academic distress.
"It's going to be a marathon," Kurrus said. "It's not a sprint and it's not a plan, it's a process. And until we change the way we do business, we'll never be successful."
Kurrus said his first day on the job began with a visit to one of those academically distressed schools, Baseline Elementary School, where a "continuous improvement plan" exists in draft form and will remain fluid until the facility is reconstituted and the new principal and staff can be involved in further developing it.
"They're going to be part of the plan," he said, stressing that that involvement is critical to finding success. "And they're going to have great ideas. I promise you they're going to have good ideas … It's not going to be top-down. It's going to be bottom-up. It's going to be formulated by people on the front lines."
Kurrus also listed a number of "major issues" in the district he said became clear as he took its top post. Among them: communications, failure to operate pursuant to an organizational structure, decision-making bottlenecks, lack of delegation of authority, lack of mutual respect among employees, low morale and budget issues.
"I have found a number of things that I need to change," Kurrus said, adding later: "These problems that I've highlighted result in a number of major organizational problems that have all translated into school failure."
Kurrus at one point thanked a group of protesters who sat in the audience with shirts and signs calling for the state to reverse its takeover of the Little Rock district, saying their presence showed they cared about the district.
And, he said, he has already met with several former members of the dissolved Little Rock board whom he acknowledged "probably don't want me to be in the chair I'm in."
"We're working together. We're going to get together. That's the way we've got to go," Kurrus said, saying reforms must be community-based and broad-based. "Without that, there's no plan devised by anyone that's going to make a big difference."
Little Rock resident Claudius Johnson, 69, was one of about 10 protesters who held up signs while Kurrus spoke asking for a return to local control. He questioned the state's justification for taking over the district and said the group wants to see the local board reinstated as soon as possible.
Johnson said the group is willing to work "anyone that is setting goals that are going to be effective in getting our kids educated."
"That's what it's going to take," he said. "In order for us to get this school district turned around, it's going to take the entire community, not just the business community. Not just them calling the shots about how it should go. It takes the parents, the teachers, administrative staff and concerned citizens."
See Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full coverage.