Michael Poore, the soon-to-be superintendent of the Little Rock School District, will start work in the district early, before he takes the helm July 1, at a cost to the state of $12,000, the Arkansas Department of Education said Friday.
Poore is currently the superintendent of the Bentonville School District, and he will be using accrued vacation leave to fulfill the remainder of his contract at Bentonville. He will begin work in the Little Rock district on June 13.
"This provides Poore and Superintendent Baker Kurrus the opportunity to collaborate on district matters prior to Poore starting as superintendent July 1," an Education Department news release said.
"During the transition, Poore and Kurrus will meet with the district's leadership team and stakeholders to collaborate on pending matters," the release also said.
Poore said in an email on Friday that he wants to use the additional time to meet staff members, participate in the interviews for job vacancies and work on fulfilling the provisions of the "Entry Plan" he announced earlier this month for his move into the district.
Already, Poore and Kurrus jointly interviewed candidates for department directors. The district also has some 14 pages of end-of-the-year employee retirements and resignations, including the retirements of at least four elementary school principals and the resignation of a high school principal, all of whom will need to be replaced.
"I have just got the Bentonville calendar cleared and now will go to work on the Little Rock calendar," Poore said about his schedule of activities. "I feel very fortunate to have additional time to work with Baker and look forward to creating the new calendar."
Kurrus said June is a busy month.
"There are a lot of things going on, a lot of moving parts," he said.
Kurrus said he expects that Poore and other Little Rock School District staff members will attend an Arkansas Department of Education conference specifically for schools and districts that are in academic or fiscal distress. That multiday conference in Hot Springs is toward the end of June.
The Education Department -- not the Little Rock School District -- is to pay Poore $12,000 for the total days he will be working during the transition period. The money will come from the budget of the state agency's Office of Intensive Support, which is headed by Andrew Tolbert. The Intensive Support Office advises districts that have been taken over by the state for either academic or fiscal distress.
An unsigned, draft contract for Poore's transition-period work -- obtained through an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request to the Education Department -- indicates that the state payment to Poore is $1,000 a day for 12 days.
Sen. Jane English, R-North Little Rock, said Friday that she didn't think the payment arrangements for Poore were unusual.
"I think that has been done before," said English, who is chairman of the Senate Education Committee. "I don't think it is anything new."
English said she expects the transition period to benefit the 25,500-student school system.
"We'll hope," she said. "Anything is possible. We are looking for the shining star out there."
Poore's superintendent salary of $225,000 a year plus benefits will be paid by the Little Rock district.
Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key in April told Kurrus that his one-year, $150,000 contract will not be renewed upon its June 30 expiration date. Key named Poore to succeed Kurrus as the chief executive in the state-controlled Little Rock district.
Poore has a two-year contract with the state to head the Little Rock district. In addition to the $225,000-a-year salary for 250 workdays, Poore will receive $850 a month for travel expenses inside the district. He also is being given access to a district cellphone, laptop computer and tablet for his official use. He can be reimbursed for up to $5,000 in relocation expenses.
The Arkansas Board of Education voted 5-4 in January 2015 to take control of the Little Rock School District because six of the district's 48 schools were labeled by the state as academically distressed for chronically low student scores on state math and literacy tests. The number of academically distressed schools has since dropped to five.
Key named Kurrus to be the superintendent in May 2015 after Dexter Suggs resigned from the job in the midst of allegations that he had plagiarized parts of his doctoral dissertation at Indiana Wesleyan University. The university later withdrew Suggs' doctorate degree.
Metro on 05/28/2016