John Walker's law firm seems to live under the skin of a Little Rock school superintendent, whether that of the sadly departed Baker Kurrus or the newly earnest Michael Poore.
Perhaps you'll remember nearly a year ago when I toured the invigorated Baseline Elementary School with Kurrus. We were enjoying a positive experience. Then Kurrus glanced across the library and saw Joy Springer, a member of the dissolved school board and a paralegal for Walker. She was at the school for a read-to-students day.
Kurrus was freshly peeved that Springer had sent an email blast declaring him to be on the verge of closing east-side elementary schools. He said he was merely beginning to contemplate his longer-term need to close schools to deal with a major loss of special state funding, as well as efficiency in general. Voices were raised, right there in the library, within feet of teachers teaching and students learning.
Late Monday afternoon I went to Hall High School. Poore, the new superintendent sent from Bentonville by the pro-charter Hutchinson administration to replace the dramatically succeeding Kurrus in the state-controlled district, was to speak to the League of Women Voters. I was anxious to hear Poore's report and behold whatever challenges he got from League members, many of whom I knew to be Kurrus fans.
Poore spoke from slides and with salesman-like energy and platitudes. That's not to say he wasn't genuine or competent; he seems to be both. He says all the right things about the children and the community.
But his challenge is daunting. He must take $10 million out of the budget by the next school year, owing to the loss of special state desegregation money. As he put it, he must grow the district while reducing funding. Kurrus had a plan, and he had built enough trust and good will to stand a chance at making it work. But that's moot.
It's Poore's world now, thanks to Asa Hutchinson.
The new superintendent got one question about local charter-school proliferation. He responded as he had before, which is that the ship has sailed on charter-school expansion and his job is to focus on making the regular public schools better.
That avoids the question of whether he'd object, as Kurrus did, if the state approved yet more charter-school proliferation to compete with the regular public school district he is working night and day to try to revive.
Poore offered an explanation that was accurate and somewhat disingenuous at the same time. The state Education Department is his school board, he said, and his job is to run the district and account for that to his board-equivalent, meaning the state, not make broader policy.
But superintendents lobby their school boards every day.
Sources in the Little Rock district tell me Poore is plagued by distrust because of the nature of his deployment and the squandering of the good will Kurrus had earned. Poore told me he sensed the distrust and knew only to keep working to try to overcome it.
Now to the Walker Law Firm and its latest penetration of a Little Rock superintendent's skin:
Amy Lafont, a lawyer with the firm, attended the Monday event and dominated the questioning of Poore. The firm has filed a Poore-preceding lawsuit alleging a school official was fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on a pattern of indifference and insensitivity toward special-needs students in the district.
Lafont challenged Poore, saying the district's ongoing services to special-needs children were flawed to the point of abuse, and that he had merely moved people around in administrative oversight rather than clean house.
Poore defended the district, citing spectacular special-education teaching he had observed at Pulaski Heights Middle School.
Then he became plainly irritated--patience-losing, nearly--when Lafont interrupted his answer to challenge his response.
Poore told Lafont that he'd listened politely to her four-pronged question, and then to her follow-up, and would appreciate it if she'd show him a similar courtesy and let him talk.
There are two matters at play. One is the serious allegations being made about the district's handling of special-needs children. Lafont told me that her allegations extend to all forms of special needs in children, but that a disproportionate share of "brown and black boys" seems to be victimized.
The other matter is Poore's woefully predictable forced immersion into the divisive, hostile, litigious and altogether tiresome culture of Little Rock public education.
I greeted Poore after the forum with the four words I deemed most appropriate for the occasion: Welcome to Little Rock.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 09/15/2016