LR schools start pupil registration
The Little Rock School District is hosting check-in registration Thursday and Friday for all high school students.
Also, pupils from kindergarten through eighth grade who did not verify their 2017-18 school enrollment plan this past spring must register on Thursday or Friday.
Information collected at the student's assigned school during the check-in event enables district staff to prepare for the child's school attendance in August, including class scheduling and transportation.
If a student has recently moved, parents should register that change at the district's student registration office, 501 Sherman St., which is near the main U.S. post office building in downtown Little Rock.
Hours for the check-in at the high schools are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The hours for the elementary and middle schools are 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Most of the student registration forms can be filled out in advance and taken to the check-in. Forms are available on the district's website: lrsd.org. The completed forms must be submitted in person to a Little Rock district school or to the district's student registration office.
LR woman named group's president
Last week, Cathy Koehler of Little Rock began a two-year term as the newly elected president of the Arkansas Education Association.
Koehler most recently served 10 years as president of the Little Rock Education Association, which is a union of licensed teachers and support staff in the Little Rock School District. She previously was a library/media specialist in the district's schools after starting her career in area parochial schools.
She holds national certification in Library Media/Early Childhood through Young Adult from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards.
Koehler succeeds Brenda Robinson in the presidency of the statewide teacher and support service organization.
Robinson twice served two-year terms in the state leadership role. She will return to teaching in the Pulaski County Special School District.
Woman will lead in Pulaski County
Janice Warren, the new interim superintendent of the Pulaski County Special School District, is the first woman chief executive officer in the district that serves about 12,000 students.
Warren, 60, assistant superintendent and director of elementary education in the Pulaski County Special district -- as well as a former Crossett superintendent -- was named the interim superintendent for the 2017-18 school year on Tuesday.
That was done in the wake of the district's School Board voting to first to dismiss the Allen Roberts law firm of Camden as its lead counsel and then dismissing Jerry Guess, who had been superintendent for six years. Guess had said that firing the Roberts firm was the same as firing him.
Roberts on Thursday sent to U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. a motion asking that he and his firm be allowed to withdraw as counsel to the school district in the long-running federal Pulaski County school desegregation lawsuit.
Marshall granted the motion Friday and noted that Sam Jones of the Mitchell Williams law firm is now the only lawyer for the district in the case.
"The Court thanks Roberts and [Whitney] Moore for their work during the last several years representing this District," Marshall wrote.
2 districts resolve financial distress
The Guy-Perkins and Yellville-Summit school districts are newly released from the state's fiscal distress program, the result of correcting financial practices that landed them in the program two years ago.
The state Board of Education released the districts based on recommendations from Arkansas Department of Education staff.
Districts that are classified as being in fiscal distress are subject to state oversight of their expenditures. The districts also must develop and carry out a financial improvement plan, which typically includes a reduction in staffing.
Principals named at 2 schools in LR
Little Rock School District's McDermott Elementary and Forest Heights STEM Academy are getting new principals for the 2017-18 school year.
Pamela Dial, formerly assistant principal at Forest Heights, will be the new principal at McDermott.
Amy Cooper will be the new principal at Forest Heights, which serves grades kindergarten through eight. Cooper also is a former assistant principal at Forest Heights.
State OKs transfer from Hope district
The Arkansas Board of Education voted 5-2 to allow a teenager who is moving from Taiwan to live with an aunt in the Hope School District to attend school in the neighboring Spring Hill School District.
The student's family applied to the Spring Hill district for an Arkansas Opportunity School Choice transfer, which is legal if the student's attendance zone school is labeled as being in academic distress for chronically low test scores. In this case, Hope High School is so labeled by the state.
However, the Spring Hill district denied the student's application because the Hope district is operating under a federal school desegregation order and has claimed an exemption from participating in interdistrict student transfers.
That prompted the family to appeal to the state Education Board as allowed by law. Representatives of the Hope district argued against allowing the student to attend school in Spring Hill, citing the law and previous court decisions that say a federal court's desegregation order has priority in a conflict with a state school transfer law.
Metro on 07/23/2017