LR school worker event set Monday
The Little Rock School District is throwing a back-to-school convocation at 9 a.m. Monday for the district's 3,500 employees -- one of whom will win a 2016 Buick Encore sports utility vehicle donated by Everett Buick GMC of Benton.
The convocation, which has as its theme "The Power of Us -- Grand Slam for Student Success, will be held at 9 a.m. Monday at Barton Coliseum to mark the beginning of the 2016-17 school year. The event will be the first time that all district employees will hear directly from Superintendent Mike Poore, who became the state-appointed chief executive officer of the state-controlled school district on July 1. He previously headed the Bentonville School District.
Poore said in a news release Wednesday that the district is appreciative of Everett Buick GMC's support of education and particularly the Little Rock School District.
"We could never pay teachers and support staff enough for their time and dedication, ensuring that our students are well equipped for college and career, " Poore said, "so this is a great example of how generous businesses like Everett can help us support their work."
Poore had reached out to the dealership and to its general manager, Chad Hendrix, because of the company's similar vehicle giveaway initiative in Northwest Arkansas.
At the convocation, the names of all school district employees will be placed in a basket, from which the winner's name will be drawn by Susie Everett, who is the spokesman and namesake for the company.
The selected employee must be present at the convocation to win, according to the district's announcement of the giveaway on Wednesday. The winner of the sports utility vehicle will be responsible for paying the sales tax and the insurance for the vehicle.
Additional names of employees will be drawn for other prizes that include a flat screen television and a weekend stay in Poore's Fayetteville condominium.
Phone problems add to LR district woes
Telephone problems persisted for a second day Wednesday throughout the Little Rock School District.
Most calls directed to schools and school district offices were automatically rolling over to the district's downtown administration building, 810 W. Markham St.
The problems began Tuesday, which was the second day of a two-day check-in period for all students who will be attending district schools in the 2016-17 school year. The first day of school for students is Aug. 15.
District leaders used the district's Facebook page to advise would-be callers to use email, if possible, to reach people at district locations. Most email addresses for district employees are comprised of the person's first and last names with a period or dot in between the names. The addresses end with @lrsd.org.
In case there is an emergency and someone needs to be reached at a campus, callers are asked to call the district's main number for assistance, 447-1000.
Community board training set today
Members of the Little Rock School District's newly created Community Advisory Board will undergo training for their role at 5:30 p.m. today at the offices of the Arkansas School Board Association, 523 S. Ringo St., a district spokesman announced Wednesday.
Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key last month selected the seven members -- one from each school board election zone in the state-controlled Little Rock district -- from a pool of more than 30 applicants.
The state Board of Education then approved the selections for the board that is to meet monthly in public with the Little Rock superintendent regarding progress of the school district. The advisory board is to also conduct hearings and make recommendations to Key on student and employee discipline matters, seek input from district residents regarding academic distress concerns in the district and submit quarterly reports to the education commissioner and the state Education Board.
A community advisory board is authorized by state law for a school district that has been taken over by the state for academic or fiscal distress and has made some progress in correcting the problems that led to the distress classification.
The Little Rock district was taken over and its elected school board dismissed by the state Board of Education in January 2015 because six of the district's 48 schools were labeled by the state as academically distressed for chronically low student test scores in math and literacy. One of the six-- Baseline Elementary -- has since dropped off the state's distressed list. The remaining five schools are J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan high schools and Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools.
The seven members of the advisory board are: Chauncey Holloman of east and downtown Little Rock's Zone 1; Maria Chavarria-Garcia from central Little Rock's Zone 2, Melanie Fox of north-central Little Rock's Zone 3; Jeff Wood, of Zone 4 covering northwest Little Rock, Larry Clark from west Little Rock's Zone 5, Anthony Hampton of Zone 6 in south-central Little Rock and Freddie Scott from southwest Little Rock's Zone 7.
Metro on 08/04/2016