Little Rock leaders to decide on asking state to end control of schools

The Little Rock Board of Directors is again diving into the politics surrounding the city's public schools, as it considers formally requesting the state to call for a school board election and return control of the district to voters.

When the state Board of Education took over the Little Rock School District more than two years ago, it ousted elected board members. Education Commissioner Johnny Key acts in place of the board and has since appointed Little Rock residents to an advisory group, which can recommend action but not conduct official business without his approval.

The absence of local control motivated opposition to a failed referendum to extend a property tax levy and was a source of frustration when the district announced plans to close three schools -- two other district issues on which city directors used board resolutions to make their feelings known.

Mayor Mark Stodola last month delayed action on the latest draft resolution after Little Rock Superintendent Michael Poore voiced a desire to be present for the vote. Stodola has since modified the request, composing a document he said is "simply asking, and I think in a very positive way, for the state to set a date for an election."

"We don't have any official authority over this issue, but I think we hopefully will speak with a largely collective voice about the importance of bringing our citizens together on an issue that has been, obviously, divisive in the past," Stodola said.

City directors are to vote on the issue during a 6 p.m. meeting Tuesday at City Hall.

A school district spokesman said Poore will attend the meeting, though it's not clear whether he intends to address the board. Key, who will be returning from a meeting in Eureka Springs on Tuesday, does not plan to attend, a department spokesman said.

The resolution essentially would be an expression of board opinion, and its passage would not require the state to take any action.

If it passes, Stodola plans to hand-deliver the document to Gov. Asa Hutchinson and discuss it with Hutchinson, the governor's appointee Key and Board of Education members, he said.

In earlier resolutions on school-district business, the board first asked the state-run district to rethink its decision to close schools, but officials declined. The board then expressed support for the district's referendum to extend the property tax, which failed.

"There have been a variety of issues we've spoken out about that have been important to communities," Stodola said. "These happen to be about the schools, but there are other issues that we have taken positions on."

Stodola's draft says it is in the city's "best interest" for residents to be "involved in the decisions" made about the district. It asks the Board of Education to announce an election date after a new law regulating state takeovers goes into effect in August, though the draft is not specific as to when that election should be held.

When the state Board of Education took control of the district in January 2015 by a 5-4 vote, six Little Rock schools were considered to be in "academic distress," per test scores. The label has since been dropped from three of the schools.

The new law, Act 930 of 2017, replaces the "academic distress" label with a five-tier system that prescribes different degrees of state intervention.

Little Rock will be classified as a "Level 5" district because it is already under state control, according to a timeline Key released in May. The Board of Education will start developing a "transitional support plan" after the law becomes effective, with a goal to approve the plan at its October board meeting. The document does not specify a time to call a local election.

Transitional support plans, according to the law, describe the support the Education Department is to provide to the school district and the school district's support to its schools.

An Education Department spokesman, who described the district as making "great progress" since the takeover, said the law's enactment should accelerate a return to local control because it affords decision-makers more flexibility.

"We are confident that Act 930 will provide for an expedited process of returning local control as compared to the requirements of the current law," the spokesman, Kimberly Friedman, said in a statement.

Stodola said he consulted with the school district on a list of achievements he included in an attachment to the request but did not confer with state or district officials on the resolution's language.

At-large City Director Joan Adcock said she would vote against the measure. She said she believes the state is improving the school district.

Specifically, Adcock said wants the Board of Education to expand the school district's boundaries to align them with city limits, which would increase revenue, prior to handing off control. District boundaries currently leave out a portion of west Little Rock.

"Asking for local control, I think that's kind of a slap to Mr. Poore and the people who are trying so hard to make [the district] better," Adcock said in an interview. "I think we just need to be patient. I think saying, 'Give us a date, give us a date,' to me, that's a little bit juvenile."

During the Tuesday meeting, Adcock said a Board of Education member told her the nonbinding resolution could prompt a letter from that member saying "they want us to do away with murder" as the capital city tries to blunt a spike in homicides this calendar year.

Adcock voted against a resolution city directors passed in March that requested the district conduct an impact study on school closures, and she favored the measure supporting the property-tax millage extension.

Anika Whitfield, a community advocate who coordinated opposition to school closures and to the millage renewal, said she is pushing for a school board election this year.

Whitfield said the city's resolution would have symbolic value but that she wished city directors were "more aggressive" in voicing their wishes for local control, either by exerting influence on movers and shakers in their orbits or taking a more visible stance.

"I intend to use whatever persuasion capabilities I've got," Stodola said, adding that if the resolution contributes to the state ceding control of the district, "I think it will go a long way to healing some of the hurt feelings people had during the millage election."

Metro on 06/04/2017

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