Annexation floated for Dollarway district

State takes look at district's future, potential combinations with Pine Bluff

A classroom is shown in this 2015 file photo.
A classroom is shown in this 2015 file photo.

In advance of an Arkansas Board of Education decision to be made later this month, leaders of the state Division of Elementary and Secondary Education are recommending that the Dollarway School District be annexed to the Pine Bluff School District.

Stacy Smith, director of the state agency’s Office of Coordinated Support and Service, detailed the different options for the Dollarway district’s future at a state Education Board work session Tuesday.

The Education Board asked questions at the 2½-hour session but made no immediate decision. The issue is on the agenda for the board’s Dec. 10 regular monthly business meeting.

The 920-student Dollarway district this month is marking its fifth year of being under state control, making it necessary by law that the state Education Board either return the district to local governance if the district has met certain requirements, or take other steps. Those include reconstituting the district by giving it a new governance structure, annexing it to become part of another district or consolidating it with another district to create an entirely new district.

The district, which is north of Pine Bluff, was initially taken over by the state in December 2015 for academic distress and was shortly after classified by the state as being in fiscal distress for financial management violations cited in a state audit and for repeatedly dipping into reserves to meet expenses.

Jason Willis, a consultant to the state on Dollarway, told the board that the district’s declining student enrollment coupled with anticipated increases in employee costs make it likely that the district — without intervention — would begin deficit spending by the early spring of 2022 and be more than $501,000 in the hole by June 30, 2022.

To avoid an illegal deficit and establish a balance of about $200,000, the district would have to make some $700,000 in cuts to its $10.1 million budget starting as soon as next month, said Willis, who called the situation — including the probable loss of two or three teachers for each of the three campuses — “untenable.”

Smith told the Education Board that the return of the district to a locally elected school board “is not an option.”

That’s because Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key and the state agency have not certified the district’s eligibility, either academically and financially, to return to local control.

Smith has said the district has made strides in teaching and learning in the past three years after two years of focusing on improving the culture and climate for learning. But the district remains short of where it needs to be to operate independently of the state authority, she has said.

In going over the other options, Smith said reconstituting the district — such as putting it under the direction of a state-appointed board or requiring it to share central administration services with Pine Bluff — would enable the district to maintain its identity and shave some administrative expenses.

But a reconstituted district would not be eligible for $3.5 million over two years in state incentive funding that will be available in the event of annexation or consolidation, she said.

Additionally, there are concerns about generating public interest in serving on an appointed school board, based on past history of public engagement in the district.

Annexing Dollarway to Pine Bluff — which is also under state control for academic and financial problems — would entitle the Pine Bluff/Dollarway system to the $3.5 million in state incentive money. It also would eliminate duplication of some services and costs in running the expanded district.

The expanded district would remain under state authority for possibly three more years. Already, Barbara Warren is the state-appointed superintendent of both districts.

Additionally, annexing the district to Pine Bluff would create some assurances that the three Dollarway school campuses — including the high school — would remain open at least next school year, or even longer if that is made a condition of the annexation by the state Education Board.

Consolidating the Pine Bluff and Dollarway districts into one new district would remove the district from state control and entitle the district to the incentive funding.

It would require the election of a school board that would make decisions about a superintendent and the operation of campuses.

Annexation and consolidation both would give a former Dollarway system access to the tax revenue benefits expected from a new casino in Pine Bluff.

Partnerships with University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, with Southeast Arkansas College and with business and industry in agriculture, hospitality and fisheries also could benefit students, Key and others said Tuesday.

Warren said there are partnerships and opportunities “waiting to bloom.” Some of those are waiting for decisions to be made about the districts, she said.

Warren also told the Education Board that a priority in the Jefferson County districts must be to recruit and retain teachers in an area of the state where teachers or their spouses tend to move on to better pay and opportunities.

She also noted that merging two districts is hard work, but she said it is work that she is called to do and is happy to do to get schools and districts ready for what she called “the next level.” She asked that any reconfigured school district stay under state authority for a time.

While she said she believed there are people in the community willing and able to be leaders in the Jefferson County school systems, she cautioned against simultaneously adding another level of governance — such as an appointed or elected board — on top of any merger.

“Local support is not a distraction,” Warren elaborated, “but if there is another layer of governance that requires a huge amount of attention from administrators, teachers, families and even the supporters who come around us, it will be even harder to do this very hard work that we have to do.

“I would ask that there be a time — whether I’m at the helm or not — where the schools will still be in the care of the Department [of Education].”

Key said the focus of the state agency and the Education Board must be on “what can we do that gives them the best success moving forward.”

The Comprehensive Center Network, Westat and WestEd national organizations joined with the state’s Office of Coordinated Support and Service to aid the Elementary and Secondary Education division in analyzing the Dollarway scenarios and soliciting input from those affiliated with the Dollarway district.

The process on deciding Dollarway’s future has been dramatically different from last year’s process for determining how to release the much larger Little Rock district from state control.

That process, which didn’t involve the consultant groups, resulted in raucous public forums, angry crowds at Education Board meetings, calls to the governor, the end to employee union recognition and a one-day teacher strike.

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