LITTLE ROCK — Morris Holmes, the superintendent of the Little Rock School District since January 2011, is resigning his position effective no later than March 22, Holmes and School Board members said Thursday.
“Some business issues have arisen and I am submitting my resignation,” Holmes wrote in a letter addressed to School Board President Dianne Curry and copied to the other board members and to Chris Heller, an attorney for the district.
A March resignation was unexpected by the board, but it only accelerates Holmes’ already anticipated departure from the state’s largest school district.
Holmes’ two-year contract with the district was due to expire June 30, and the School Board is in the midst of interviewing four finalists for the chief executive’s job.
The board, which has one more finalist interview Monday, could make a decision on a new superintendent as soon as a special meeting set for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
However, none of the four finalists is currently an Arkansas resident and so therefore not likely to be able to take on the job immediately. That will make a School Board appointment of an interim superintendent necessary.
Curry said that could happen as soon as Tuesday’s meeting.
In his letter, Holmes asked that his resignation be placed on the agenda for Thursday night’s regular School Board meeting.
Board members did not publicly announce the resignation at the meeting, although several took the opportunity during a part of the meeting reserved for board remarks to thank Holmes, now 73, for coming out of retirement in2011 to head the district.
“He is a true leader with an unmatched skill set,” board member Leslie Fisken said, adding that Holmes “the whole time kept his eye on the prize - the students.”
Board members voted 4-3 to go into executive session to consider the employment of the superintendent. Board members met in the private session for about 20 minutes before reconvening in public. They took no action and adjourned.
Questioned after the meeting about the comments regarding Holmes, Curry said she had received a resignation letter dated Feb. 22, in which Holmes said he would resign March 18. She said an amended letter with a March 22 resignation date was sent later, but that letter was not immediately available Thursday night.
Holmes, in a telephone interview late Thursday, said either date is possible - that he was giving the board “some elasticity.”
He said he preferred to keep the business issues to which he referred in the letter confidential.
“I had some business interests when I went to work,” he said. ”I’ve neglected a whole lot of business interests, in state and out of state, that at this point in time I need to get back to.”
The resignation letter was brief.
“As you know, I have given a good deal of energy to the job of Superintendent and that I have appreciated the work and relationships,” he wrote.
Board members voiced regret about Holmes’ resignation.
“It’s amicable,” board member Greg Adams said. “There’s no hard feelings. No pressure.”
Board member Jody Carreiro said, “Personally, I would ask him if there was any way he could stay until June 30.”
“I think all of us would wish otherwise,” Adams added about Holmes’ leaving early.
Holmes is an Arkansas native who, early in his career, was a district teacher and then principal at Little Rock Central High. He was an assistant director in the Arkansas Department of Education, then left the state to be an assistant superintendent in the Fort Worth schools and later superintendent of the New Orleans public school system.
He returned to Arkansas and semi-retirement and was called on to be an interim superintendent in the Little Rock School District in 2003-04. He was passed up for the full time position in 2004 in favor of Roy Brooks, who was removed from the position by the board in 2007.
Holmes became the district’s interim superintendent in January 2011 after the board entered into an agreement with then-Superintendent Linda Watson to leave her job before her contract expired in June 2011. The board conducted a national search for a new superintendent and then asked Holmes, who was not a candidate for the job, to take on the position under a two-year contract. His annual base salary is $215,000.
The search now for a new superintendent has proved to be a little rocky, as some community residents and board members have expressed strong concerns about one finalist, Walter Milton Jr., who is superintendent of the Springfield, Ill., school district but will leave the job later this month as a result of an agreement with the Springfield board. Milton has the most superintendent experience of the four finalists, having led districts in Springfield, Flint, Mich., and Fallsburg, N.Y., but also has generated the most debate because of news reports about audit findings in Fallsburg, and personnel decisions in the all the districts.
James Ross, a Little Rock district parent who started a Facebook petition asking the board not to consider Milton, on Thursday praised the other three finalists.
“I beg you to choose wisely. We are running out of time to heal our broke city,” Ross told the board.
Adams told the audience that the board had been very united in its decisions on leadership in recent years and that he hoped that unanimity would continue in the selection of a new superintendent.
“Hang in there with us,” Adams told the audience.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/01/2013