The Pulaski County Special School District School Board approved a contract for interim Superintendent Janice Warren at a Tuesday meeting in which it also accepted the low bid on a bond issue to pay for the expansion of Sylvan Hills High School.
Warren, who was named interim superintendent July 18 for the 2017-18 school year, will be paid what is equal to an annual salary of $195,000 but adjusted for her actual length of service, which will be just short of a full school year.
The School Board voted unanimously for the salary and other contract terms after conferring in a session that was closed to the public for about 45 minutes.
The five-page contract includes a provision in which the board and Warren agree that Warren shall return to her position as Assistant Superintendent for Equity and Pupil Services, or to another mutually agreeable post when the interim superintendent contract expires or is terminated.
The contract allows the board to end its agreement with Warren for good cause, including a loss of board confidence in her or the belief that the district would be better served with a replacement leader.
"In the event of termination hereunder, the salary and benefits of the Interim Superintendent shall terminate immediately," the contract states.
Warren, 60, has a doctorate degree and 10 years of experience as superintendent in the Crossett School District prior to five years in the Pulaski County Special system.
School Board member Eli Keller on Tuesday commended Warren in particular and the district staff in general for permitting no setbacks in their ongoing preparations for the new school year, which starts Monday. He also praised Warren for "transparency" in her dealing with the board, including her practice of copying all board members on her email correspondence with one or more members.
Warren, the district's first woman superintendent, succeeds Jerry Guess in the leadership position. The School Board voted last month to immediately dismiss Guess, who said he would not continue in the job if not able to retain the Allen P. Roberts law firm of Camden as the district's chief legal counsel. The board fired the law firm just before dismissing Guess, who had headed what is now a 12,000-student district for six years.
Guess, 66, who also has a doctorate degree, was under contract to work for the district through June 30, 2019 at an annual salary of $215,000. A provision in that contract entitles him to six more months of his salary -- $107,500 -- after his termination.
One of Warren's responsibilities will be overseeing the beginning construction on the expansion of Sylvan Hills High School in Sherwood, for which voters in June approved a 13-year extension on the levy of 14.8 of the district's 40.7 mill property tax rate.
Revenue from the tax, which was due to expire in 2035 but is now extended to 2048, will enable the district to pay off $65 million in bond debt for the building project.
Jack Truemper of Stephens Inc., a financial adviser to the district, told the board Tuesday that the district received three offers on the bond issue. The board accepted the lowest interest rate bid of 3.734965 percent, from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The other bids were from Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, which offered an interest rate of 3.750007, and Roberts W. Baird & Co., Inc., which offered a 3.794161 percent rate for the general obligation bonds.
Truemper said the structure of the bond issue and the lower-than-anticipated interest rate will net the district $66,278,675.02 for construction and equipment.
Design work for the expanded Sylvan Hills is underway and site work could begin as soon as November, Derek Scott, the district's executive director of operations, said at a break in the board meeting.
Enrollment at Sylvan Hills High School has increased from 825 in 2010-11 to 1,422 this past year, and is projected to continue to swell. That is largely because of new neighborhoods in Sherwood but also the result of changes in district boundary lines and school attendance zones that followed the detachment of the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District from the Pulaski County Special district in 2016.
Pulaski Special district leaders this past year opened up the Sylvan Hills Freshman Campus at the former Northwood Middle School in the Gravel Ridge community, about five miles from Sylvan Hills High, to compensate for the burgeoning enrollment.
The high school campus expansion will include a new multistory classroom building with a media center and a cafeteria and kitchen for 1,200 students. A new performing arts center will double as a storm shelter. A 2,200-seat arena and a multipurpose activities center for band and athletics are also in the plans for the campus. The existing classrooms and auditorium -- built in 1967 for 850 students -- will then be renovated, creating an overall campus capacity of about 2,200 students.
The Pulaski County Special district is already in the midst of an extensive building program. A new Mills University Studies High School on Dixon Road in southeast Pulaski County is under construction and scheduled to open in August 2018. The existing Mills campus will then be converted into a middle school to replace the existing Fuller Middle School, which will be demolished. A new Robinson Middle School in the western part of the county will open in August 2018.
Metro on 08/09/2017