2 offer to pay specialist to aid LR School District

Leaders of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel on Tuesday offered to pay for a specialist in community engagement to aid the state-controlled Little Rock School District in rebuilding public support.

Speaking to the district's new Civic Advisory Committee, Rockefeller Foundation Vice President Cory Anderson and Public Policy Panel Executive Director Bill Kopsky, proposed that Jenifer Henderson, president of a Nevada management and leadership development company, be retained as the consultant to help build consensus among a diverse and polarized Little Rock community about the school district's future.

"She has the depth and breadth of experience to have credibility with many of the different fragments of the community that are currently frustrated with the LRSD," Kopsky and Anderson said in a written proposal to the Civic Advisory Committee.

As of Tuesday the advisory committee of more than 30 members is co-chaired by former Little Rock School Board member Greg Adams and Hendrix College faculty member and district parent Dionne Jackson.

Adams was one of the seven locally-elected Little Rock School Board members removed from service when the Arkansas Board of Education voted Jan. 28 to assume control of the state's largest school system because six of the district's 48 schools are classified as academically distressed for low student performance over a three-year period.

The state Education Board's motion to take over the district also called for immediately forming a community group of parents, students, community and business leaders, and philanthropic organizations to aid in improving student performance in all schools.

The advisory committee members were selected by a committee of Little Rock-area lawmakers from the pool of more than 80 people who applied. Jackson was one of the applicants selected for advisory committee membership.

Adams was not one of those applicants but he and Jackson were named co-chairmen of the advisory committee after the Arkansas Education Board earlier this month directed that a chairman -- initially envisioned as one person -- head the advisory committee and serve as a liaison among the committee, district and state.

The state Education Board "charge" to the advisory committee calls for the committee, which also includes displaced School Board member Joy Springer, to serve as a sounding board for district strategies, advise district leaders on how to communicate with parents and patrons, and otherwise foster good relationships.

To those ends, Anderson and Kopsky proposed in addition to the hiring of Henderson that the civic advisory committee and district leaders meet together in a retreat to produce a "clear road map of decisions" that the district would be making and how committee members and the public could contribute to those decisions.

They also proposed that public forums be held at each of the six state-labeled academically distressed schools and one initial citywide community forum be planned that would be hosted by as many of the city's business, education, policy and faith organizations as possible.

The civic advisory committee, which also received a status report Tuesday from Superintendent Baker Kurrus, planned to discuss the community engagement proposal at its June meeting, the date of which has not yet been finalized.

Metro on 05/27/2015

Upcoming Events