2 on NLR board explain inaction

Renewal bid called premature as chief’s evaluation in flux

North Little Rock School Board members elaborated Friday on their relationship with Superintendent Kelly Rodgers after a board member's motion to extend Rodgers' contract by a year died for lack of a second the night before.

Board President Darrell Montgomery and board member Luke King both said Friday that the seven-member board and Rodgers have initiated a new goal-setting and evaluation system for the superintendent that is not yet fully in place. Extending the contract to a full three years as permitted by law would amount to jumping ahead in the process, they said.

As it stands, Rodgers' current contract with its $185,000 annual salary will expire June 30, 2019, unless the board votes to extend the term. State law allows a superintendent to have a three-year contract. School boards routinely add a year to a leader's contract for each year that is expended. A board's failure to extend a contract can be a sign of dissatisfaction with a superintendent but is short of buying out a contract or replacing the superintendent.

Montgomery said some in the public have interpreted the North Little Rock board's failure to extend Rodgers' contract to mean that Rodgers will be leaving his post as chief executive of the 8,000-student district.

"That's not the message of the board," Montgomery said.

"He's had some successes," Montgomery added about Rodgers, 60, who is in his fourth year as the district's chief executive after being a superintendent for 10 years in Texas.

Montgomery noted that the board and district staff have been focused in recent years on the construction and financing of new and remodeled schools, and that now time is needed for the superintendent and board to develop goals "so we will all be able to move forward in the same direction."

On Thursday, after meeting for about 45 minutes in private, board member Taniesha Richardson-Wiley made a motion in a public session to extend Rodgers' contract by a year to June 30, 2020. But none of the other four members present at the meeting seconded the motion, which is a required step before a motion can be put to a vote.

Besides Richardson-Wiley, those present Thursday night were Montgomery, King, Sandi Campbell, and Dorothy Williams. Absent at the time of the vote were Tracy Steele and Scott Teague.

Rodgers had earlier in the night presented the board with a package of job goals, including strategies, timelines and resources for accomplishing them.

King said the board will provide feedback to Rodgers on those goals at its Feb. 2 work session and then finalize the goals at its Feb. 16 regular monthly meeting. King said he anticipates a semi-annual review of the superintendent's progress in meeting the goals. He said the board can always revisit the matter of extending the contract.

Montgomery said the six-month review would give the superintendent time to correct any deficiencies before the contract extension time, which is usually in January.

"We are just trying to go through the evaluation process as it is intended to work," King said. "Based on that and based on the things we want to do, we are in the position to see how the goals are achieved and then look at the contract."

"I'm speaking for myself only, but I certainly think he has done a good job in working to lead us," King said about Rodgers. "The last four to five years have had a lot of interesting times. With that, I don't believe there are any steps toward [buying out Rodgers' contract] or any discussion -- at least in my mind, that that is the case."

In addition to building and financing its capital construction program, the district has been released from federal court supervision of its desegregation efforts, established a charter school within its high school, put old campuses up for sale, hired a new high school principal, fired a high school football coach and is now in the midst of cutting costs to absorb the loss of $7.6 million in state desegregation aid.

King went on to say that Rodgers has the "full support" of a School Board that is "trying to continue to find the very best and achieve the very best for this district. These are the steps we think are best."

Teague was absent from Thursday's meeting because of a work commitment. He learned of the board's lack of a vote on a contract extension after it happened.

He said he didn't want to second-guess his board colleagues on the matter.

"I think it's a deal where no one needs to overreact one way or another," Teague said. "At the end of the day, as in Little Rock and in the Pulaski County Special School District, too, we are all going through a very difficult time with the loss of state desegregation funding and budget cuts. That puts pressure on everybody in a school district, whether it's a board or a superintendent, or whoever. It stresses the whole system a little bit."

The superintendent evaluation system and professional growth plan is a model offered to school districts by the Arkansas School Boards Association.

Rodgers proposed three goals for himself for 2017:

• A 10 percent improvement in student achievement on state tests.

• A balanced budget reflecting the loss of desegregation funds and the pursuit of alternative sources of revenue.

• The development of a strategic plan based on concepts established earlier.

Each of the goals is followed by strategies or actions that will be taken to accomplish the goals.

Regarding the development of a balanced budget, for example, the strategies call for establishing dates for meetings with employees to determine program and budget needs. A second strategy calls for conducting community meetings to present and receive input on budget cuts due to desegregation. A third strategy calls for setting a budget for materials, staff and professional development.

Metro on 01/21/2017

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