The Grassroots Arkansas community meeting Tuesday night about the potential for a Little Rock School District employees' strike next month was a mix of information, history lessons, hard questions and calls to action.
As many as 150 parents, community members and teachers attended the forum that was hosted by the civic activist group and its leader, Anika Whitfield, at Union AME Church. Grassroots Arkansas has long called for the immediate and complete return of the state-controlled Little Rock district to a locally elected school board.
"We are experiencing a lawless state," Whitfield told the audience. "We have been experiencing violence in the worst possible ways. Our monies are being spent in ways to harm us. Our children are being violated every day," she said, saying that children are demoralized by attending schools that are labeled as failing or with campuses not as modern as others.
She called for a unified school district in which residents decide through elections who will represent them.
"We must stop this madness. We must tell the state 'No More,'" she said, starting an audience chant. "We are going to move forward together," she said, starting another chant.
The community meeting, preceded by picketing at the Governor's Mansion, comes in the aftermath of the Arkansas Board of Education's Sept. 20 and Oct. 10 votes on a framework plan for the future operation of the Little Rock system, which has eight F-graded schools and has not met student achievement criteria for exiting state control.
The framework plan as now modified calls for the election in November 2020 of a nine-member Little Rock school board that "may have limited authority as defined by the state board, or which may operate under the direction and approval of the Commissioner of Education." The district would remain a Level 5 district -- in need of intensive support from the state, as outlined in the state's system of holding schools responsible for student achievement.
Additionally, the Education Board at that Oct. 10 meeting directed the Little Rock district to end its long-standing recognition of the Little Rock Education Association employee union as the exclusive contract bargaining agent for teachers. The Education Board is requiring that personnel policy committees made up of teachers and administrators be elected in the district to advise on employment-related matters, such as compensation and benefits.
The end to collective bargaining will be effective Oct. 31, which is when the existing professional negotiated agreement between the district and the union expires. Association leadership and members have raised the possibility of taking a job action -- such as a strike -- after that point.
No decisions were announced about such action on Tuesday, but leaders at the event urged audience members to monitor and even help expand websites and social media outlets that could be sources of information about a strike and potential off-campus sites staffed by vetted professionals for student instruction, activities and meals during any strike.
One audience member, who said he was playing the devil's advocate, asked for a plan.
"What are you going to do about what they have already done?" he said about the state decisions.If we were playing chess, we would be in check," he said.
"So people either have to walk away and leave the children ... as sacrificial lambs or [teachers] stay put? Which one is it going to be?"
Another audience member voiced concerns about the complexity of the issues of state control, student achievement and union recognition.
What would end the work stoppage?" she asked, adding there didn't seem to be a clear path to a resolution.
But other audience members saw the matters differently.
"Going into the classroom and being subjected [to] the humiliation of not being looked at as a professional is not an option for me," LaRon McAdoo, a Little Rock district teacher, told the assembly Tuesday.
He also said that should there be a strike, schools may not be open at all or if they are open, students will likely be put together in large groups to be supervised by people who are not staff members and do not have access to teacher lesson plans.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, a former 30-year high school English teacher, said students are not sacrifices but are "catalysts" for teachers to advocate for what is best for their students and that it would be irresponsible to not fight for their needs.
Lou Ethel Nauden, a retired teacher, told how she called for the 1987 strike of the Little Rock district employees, which shut down the schools with wide support from community members and even some district administrators.
While she said she supports a job action, she warned that without widespread public support "you are walking into a slaughter."
Metro on 10/23/2019