William Rountree has been certified to be a school district superintendent for 20 years but said he never felt called to a position anywhere except the Carlisle School District. Having taught and coached at the district twice before, Rountree said he believes he is returning to his roots as the district’s new superintendent.
Rountree first came to the district in 2003 and was the head coach for the high school boys basketball team, winning three conference championships and two district championships. After leaving Carlisle in 2006 for Sylvan Hills High School for one school year as a basketball coach, Rountree, in 2007, became the principal and boys basketball coach at Cross County High School near Cherry Valley.
He returned to Carlisle in 2008 to coach the boys and girls basketball teams for another five years before taking a job at Jacksonville High School as the head girls basketball coach. He left Jacksonville in 2015 to take over as the head girls basketball coach and athletic director for the Maumelle School District. He retired at the end of the 2018-2019 school year.
Rountree has lived in Carlisle on and off since 2003 and applied for the superintendent position in 2018, but the job ultimately went to Brad Horn. Rountree said things just kind of fell in place for him this time around. He officially began his role as Carlisle superintendent on July 1.
“This is my third stint at Carlisle; it is a special place,” he said. “I’ve got great memories from when I coached there, and a lot of my former players are now members of the community.
“I’ve got a lot of roots here. This will be the last job I ever have in education, and it is a great and humbling honor to be a superintendent at a place that is so special to me.”
Rountree was hired by the school board in March, and because he was retired, he has been working in transition with Horn, who is leaving the district to be the new cooperative director at the Wilbur D. Mills Education Co-op in Beebe.
“It has been a really good process to be able to bounce ideas off somebody,” Horn said. “It has been nice to have Rountree to talk through things with since he came on board.”
Horn said he is leaving Rountree with an administration team that Horn has a lot of respect for and who have a lot of value. He said his principals and other staff are
“top-notched.”
Horn joined the district seven years ago as a principal and athletic director and met Rountree before he left to be a basketball coach at Jacksonville. Horn said he and Rountree had some conversations before Rountree left, but Horn said he had never had the privilege of working with Rountree until now.
“In the two-year tenure that Horn has been superintendent, his finest hour has been this period of confusion during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Rountree said. “Carlisle has been very much on the cutting edge with the information it has been able to get out, the feeding program the district initiated for students during the spring and the uses of technology during the education process.
“I have been immersing myself with what is going on, as far as Carlisle’s finances, budget and so forth, and Horn has been super helpful. He has guided me through everything he was doing, and a couple of times, we worked hand in hand on a combination of different things as he led the district through this very challenging time.”
Rountree said that a couple of weeks ago, administrators sent a districtwide email to parents, and from what he can tell, the parents are planning to send about 80 percent of the district’s students back to school, with hopes of beginning on-site instruction on Aug. 13.
“We are preparing for that,” he said. “We have ordered a significant amount of new technology and PPE (personal protective equipment) to promote health and safety.
“We certainly want our kids in school, and we want on-site instruction, and if that’s not the choice, we will have blended [instruction], which will be a real learning opportunity.”
Rountree said he has been in education for 30 years, 29 of which he spent in athletics in some capacity, either as a coach or an athletic director. He said Carlisle has a great community that is very school-minded.
“We have a good parent nucleus and a top-notch faculty, staff and administration that utilize the team approach,” he said. “We are trying to stay positive and make our school situation the best we can in a safe and healthy environment.”
Carlisle is a Class 2A school with an enrollment of about 685 students, including pre-K. He said because the district has smaller facilities than many districts, Carlisle plans to do the very best in using the space and in giving teachers and students the tools to social distance. He said the school will provide face masks or face shields for all students and staff.
He also said that for some of the younger classes, the district will install Plexiglas so students can still work on their phonics. Rountree said Carlisle will try to play to the district’s strength, which “is an outstanding group of dedicated professionals who are really ready to come back and do what they are trained to do, and that’s teach kids.”
“We are looking forward to the opportunity,” he said.
Horn said the fact that Rountree is coming back to a district where he previously coached and taught is beneficial because many former players and students are now parents with kids of their own in the district. Horn said that some of the district’s classified employees are also former students of Carlisle.
“There is an automatic acceptance there, I guess,” Horn said. “They know you, and they trust you, and they know you will take care of their kids the same way [Rountree] took care of them as students.”
Rountree grew up in Rogers, graduating from high school in 1984. He earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1989 and a master’s degree from the U of A in 1999. He began his coaching career as the head baseball coach for Gravette High School. He was also an assistant for the boys basketball team and football team. His mom still lives in Rogers.
“I’ve had a real interesting career,” Rountree said. “I’ve coached at these really small rural schools in Arkansas, and I spent seven years of service for the Pulaski County School District. I’ve kind of been able to see it all.
“I’ve been a lot of places, and that helps as you age and get a little wiser. I’ve been really fortunate to have worked under and with some outstanding superintendents. I’ve got a tremendous Rolodex of people that I can call on for advice who have been very successful in the role.
“Just like being a coach, you don’t always have all the answers, so you study the game, explore and ask questions.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.