The Little Rock School Board won't take up the cases of nearly 70 teachers who were suspended without pay for refusing one day last September to teach their students in-person in their classrooms.
The board voted 6-2 late Thursday to decline to consider the cases of the teachers who lost three or five days of pay for teaching not at their schools but virtually from their homes because they felt schools were unsafe due to the covid-19 virus.
"In all due respect to the anxieties and challenges and the sufferings of this past year for our staff, and with frankly no joy, I make a motion that we decline to rehear or reconsider the decisions made in the September work action," Greg Adams said.
The board dealt with the September teacher suspensions issue in a nearly seven-hour meeting that stretched past midnight, during which the board members also mulled over a possible special election in September on extending by 18 years the levy of 12.4 debt service mills. Among the reports on the board's lengthy agenda was one on the district's fledgling partnership with the city of Little Rock to apply a national community school model to four of the district's elementary campuses -- Stephens, Watson, Washington and Chicot elementaries.
Forty-six of the 68 teachers suspended for the one-day September job action had appealed the suspensions levied by Superintendent Mike Poore to the state-appointed Community Advisory Board in late 2020.
The now defunct advisory board served as a liaison between the district and Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key. The advisory board and Key, who acted at the time in place of a school board in the state-controlled school district, upheld the suspensions without pay.
Since then, a nine-member School Board has been elected. Members of the new board have been asked by some of the affected teachers and others to restore the lost pay to the employees.
School Board President Vicki Hatter told her board colleagues that she was assured by a law firm for the school district that the board had the authority to reconsider the employee reprimands because the suspensions and appeal hearings had occurred in the current school year.
"We need to resolve this because it keeps coming up," Hatter said, suggesting that the board could either uphold the decisions or, on the other hand, do a sweeping overturn of the suspensions for all 68, or deal with each case individually.
Poore had prepared a written statement to the board arguing in writing and then verbally Thursday that the law is not clear on whether the board has the right to overturn the previous decisions, but he believed it would be "an unhealthy precedent" to reverse decisions made by him, the former advisory board and Key.
Poore said the employees, whom he called good teachers and hence not fired, have the right to sue the district in court, which none have done.
Board member Evelyn Callaway noted that, unlike the current board, the former advisory board was not elected. She also objected to the fact that the number of suspended days exceeded the number of days missed by the teachers.
Ali Noland, another board member, also raised questions about the law and precedent and about board member ability to be unbiased in any rehearings because of their previous positions as advisory board members or as activist citizens who wrote letters to Poore at the time of the suspensions.
Noland apologized "from the bottom of my heart" to the teachers for what they have been through this year. She also said it would not be in "the district's best interest for us to start working backwards." She said the board has made strides by passing a covid-leave policy that preserves employee sick leave, keeping a mask mandate in place and taking steps to provide pandemic pay of as much as $2,000 per employee.
"We are trying to take care of our teachers," Noland said.
Hatter and Callaway voted against the motion to decline to reconsider the suspensions. Those voting for the motion were Adams, Noland, Sandrekkia Morning, Norma Johnson, Michael Mason and Leigh Ann Wilson. Board member Jeff Wood was absent.
EXTENSION ELECTION
The board on Thursday discussed but did not finalize a date for an election on extending the levy of 12.4 debt service tax mills as a way to generate as much as $220 million for school construction and renovations.
That vote could occur in May or even as late as June for a special election on Sept. 14 that has been proposed by Poore and his staff.
Noland suggested that time in the board's May meeting could be used to discuss specifics on how the new money could be used.
Noland, Hatter and other board members questioned how the timing and outcome of an election would be affected by the fact that the state continues to impose conditions on the district as a result of the district being in the Level 5/ intensive support category of the state's efforts to hold districts accountable for student achievement.
The school board can't file lawsuits, nor can it recognize or negotiate with an employee union or change superintendents as a result of the state restraints.
A proposed tax extension -- which would not increase the amount of taxes paid yearly by property owners in the district but would extend the number of years the taxes are collected -- has been defeated twice already by Little Rock voters during the time the district was under state control.
"Do we want to do this now?" Hatter asked, adding that there is a high probability voters -- "traumatized" by the state takeover of the system will reject the measure a third time.
The state has created an exit plan for the district that calls for the district to show that it is carrying out a literacy instruction program, using professional learning communities of teachers to promote student achievement, keeping up facilities and operating with a budget that does not require dipping into reserves.
Kelsey Bailey, the district's chief financial officer, told the board that a millage extension to support facilities will keep the district from having to make budget cuts, the savings of which would have to be used to replace old roofs at six or seven schools. The district is also obligated by a settlement in a federal lawsuit to replace Cloverdale Middle School with a building constructed on the site of the now vacant McClellan School.
COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
Also Thursday, Hatter told her Board colleagues that she intends to establish a committee of board members and others to oversee the development of the community school features at four Little Rock schools and possibly additional schools.
Darian Smith of the district and Jay Barth of the city of Little Rock reported to the Board on the grants received and the programs initiated at the community schools.
Noland asked that an overarching memorandum of understanding about the community schools be prepared between the district and the city.
CORRECTION: Greg Adams is the Little Rock School Board member who made a motion late Thursday to decline to rehear or reconsider the suspensions without pay for teachers who refused to conduct a day of in-person class instruction in September. An earlier version of this story omitted Adams’ first name.