Bryan Duffie said he never really thought he’d be back in the Pulaski County area.
But with a 7-0 vote from the Jacksonville North Pulaski School Board earlier this month naming him as the district’s next superintendent, Duffie will be around for a while longer.
Duffie, who became the assistant superintendent of support services for the district in March, will begin his term as superintendent in July 2017, replacing Superintendent Tony Wood. This school year is the first the Jacksonville North Pulaski School District has been in operation since its separation from the Pulaski County Special School District.
“I really appreciate the confidence the board has, and really, to me, it’s more about the confidence in the system,” Duffie said.
Duffie was born in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and grew up in Bernie, Missouri, until moving to Jonesboro with his family around the age of 5. His senior year, he moved to Louisiana but returned to Arkansas during his college years, during which he studied math education at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
He began his teaching career at North Little Rock High School and said education was always a draw for him.
“That was just something I really wanted to be a part of, saw a need in that area, thought about different fields, and I just kept being drawn to teaching, learning, helping kids, being involved with young adults and youth,” he said. “It just drew me there, and it started at North Little Rock, and I thought, ‘Let’s give it a try just to see.’ I just really liked it, always have loved working with young people, and just so many want someone to care about them; they really do.”
Duffie stayed in the area for 16 years until becoming the principal at Westside Middle School, outside of Jonesboro, for three years, and then Westside High School principal for a couple of years. In 2010, he became superintendent of the Westside Consolidated School District and remained in that role until his transition to the Jacksonville North Pulaski School District this year.
Duffie jokes that transitioning from teaching to becoming a principal or superintendent is like crossing over to “the dark side.” There are many situations that principals and superintendents handle that teachers and other staff members do not have to take the heat for, he said.
“You accept that job knowing you’re 100 percent responsible for everything that happens in that school building. Regardless of who did it or whatever happens, you are responsible, and you have to take that seriously,” he said. “It is a lot of 12-, 14-hour days, weekend work and everything else. A lot of teachers do that as well. It’s just that ramped-up responsibility. I’m not saying it’s all bad.”
Duffie said there are past colleagues from his time at the Westside Consolidated Schools who are now employees in the new Jacksonville district. He said he was drawn to the Jacksonville district because of how it was formed, and that while he was a teacher at North Little Rock High School, he had heard of the Jacksonville community wanting its own district.
“One thing is the uniqueness of the situation of how the Jacksonville North Pulaski formation evolved,” Duffie said of his interest in the district. “It was in the news some … just some brief mentions. I thought, ‘I need to keep up with this. This is interesting.’ And there are people in this district who are here now [whom] I’ve known from the past.”
Phyllis Stewart, chief of staff of the Jacksonville North Pulaski School District, said the new district being smaller makes it easier to manage and build support.
“The Pulaski County [Special] School District, before separation, was 729 square miles,” she said. “There was no way for that district to actually have a relationship with each community. It didn’t have a community; it had several communities. It’s important that the people and the students we serve here feel that they have access to the school leaders and to the board of education where they live. It’s about local control.”
Now that there is a new district in Jacksonville, Duffie said, there can be more opportunities to build and create from the ground up instead of inheriting prior ideals.
Stewart said Duffie is good at team-building and that he’ll “hit the ground running” in his new role.
“From what I’ve seen, since he’s been here, he is a very inclusive leader,” she said. “He brings his department heads together, and they brainstorm to work out different issues.”
As assistant superintendent, Duffie has overseen support services for the district, such as transportation, maintenance, food service, technology, custodial, athletics, security, health services, business and student services. In the future, someone will be hired to replace that support-services role.
“When you take on being superintendent, you’ve still got to be in the loop on all of that,” he said. “It may not be the intimate detail that I’m involved in now, but you’re still in the loop of the major things going on in those areas.”
Duffie said he’ll continue to visit classrooms, attend school events and meet with parents as superintendent, and that he’ll also help the district in out-of-the-box ways as needed.
“You really do what it takes to get the work done, if it means — and I’ve done this before — if it means you’re shorthanded, and you’ve got to go help clean a building at night, you just do it,” he said. “Or you’re really behind, your grounds crew is behind, you go out and do some trimming and mowing grass. Well, sometimes, we have to pull up our bootstraps and just do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
The district has never had to beg for community help, Duffie said. He said he thinks the parents’ and community’s interest in voluntarily helping at school crossing zones, reading to kids and pitching in at school cleanups stems from the community wanting its own district for so long.
In the future, Duffie said, he’d like to see more career and technical education offered to students, along with an expansion of A+ schools in the district. In August 2019, the district will open its new high school, and in August 2018, a new elementary school is planned to open. That elementary school will combine Arnold Drive and Tolleson elementary schools, the district’s smallest schools, which will close.
The district’s Facilities Master Plan also includes construction of a multipurpose building to be shared between Taylor and Bayou elementary schools and, in five to seven years, the construction of a new elementary school that will combine the student bodies of Dupree and Pinewood elementary schools.
While Duffie has visions for the district, he will have an open mind when entering his new role.
“I’m not going to come here with any preconceived notions of, ‘This will fix our situation,’” he said. “Could some things enhance? Sure. I think a big piece is making sure our community knows we want them involved, that we want them to positively contribute to the school district, and really, the support here has been phenomenal.”
Duffie’s wife and children still live in Jonesboro and will join him in the Jacksonville area in a couple of months.
Duffie said he feels good about the Jacksonville community and district and that everyone has been supportive.
“The potential is huge, and I’m just very glad I’m allowed to be part of it,” he said.
Staff writer Syd Hayman can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or shayman@arkansasonline.com.