The tone inside McFadden Gymnasium for the Pine Bluff School District's annual report to the public didn't entirely reflect excitement over the future, or present, of Jefferson County's largest school system.
At least one parent said a strategic plan for the Dollarway School District annexation into the PBSD last July 1 should have been established by then, rather than months later, when a community advisory committee to provide Superintendent Barbara Warren and other district leaders input into the district's future was announced.
"To me, it's almost like everybody is dragging their feet when it comes to making this happen, because if you knew that we were annexing the day that happened, then some plans should have already been in place, past the point of where we are now," district parent Trammell Howell said. "I'm frustrated with the district because we're not past that point. We're just now talking about getting people together in the community to get a strategic plan together. Where is your plan, already?"
The Dollarway-Pine Bluff annexation took place seven months after the state Board of Education, which had overseen the Dollarway district for five years at the time, ordered it.
"It feels like the conversation of annexation and the action around it taking place has been years and years," said Warren, who had led the Dollarway district from its 2015 state takeover before taking on supervision of the PBSD in 2020. "But it's not. It actually went into place July 1. The order was December 10, 2020. There are certain actions as it relates to the annexation that we have been executing, and just in a semester we have done a lion's share of things that are almost invisible, the things you can't see from the combining data, records and student records -- all types of HR [human resources] things just in and of itself."
Arkansas Department of Education deputy commissioner Stacy Smith said there is a chance a limited-authority local board could assume control of the PBSD by January 2023, with full local control by November 2023 possible.
PLANNING THE PLAN
The district has organized student, educator and parent advisory committees and began holding discussions with them during the fall semester.
In December the PBSD announced its Community Advisory Committee, which includes 20 leaders from education, civic, business and faith sectors. The group will meet once per month for 12 months to advise Warren and other district leaders on what PBSD community engagement coordinator Kimberley West calls "the design and implementation" of the district's strategic plan.
"The strategic planning process will take place in four phases over the upcoming year -- setting the direction and vision of the school district, determining specific strategies to move forward, garnering community-wide commitment and setting in motion specific action steps to meet their goals," West said. "The committee's work and planning process overall will be spearheaded by Superintendent Warren and her team."
West added Warren chose facilitators from WestEd, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization experienced in partnering with school districts on strategic planning efforts.
Howell also expressed opposition to keeping the former Dollarway campuses separate from the pre-annexation PBSD schools and told Warren that the district risks losing more children to Friendship Aspire Schools, which broke ground on a new downtown campus earlier in the week, if a strategic plan is not formed.
"Dollarway School District is gone," Howell said. "It's gone. They were in fiscal distress for almost 10 years or so. They're supposed to be Pine Bluff School District. We need to be thinking about, what are we doing to advance to the Pine Bluff School District as one? Keeping the schools separate, that's not saving us money."
Warren said a legal order called for all campuses to remain open for this school year.
"I feel like somebody could just as passionately and speak into the microphone about not closing the schools with just as much passion," Smith said, addressing Howell's concerns. "But I hear what you are saying, and we did have cost savings with the annexation, with the consolidation of some employees into one central office. When teachers left, we really had to look at our numbers and ratios and things like that."
Smith added a facilities plan that includes an upcoming high school -- the location of which is to be determined -- was submitted to state officials within the first two years of the PBSD being under state control (since September 2018) and approved for partnership funding last August.
ONE IDENTITY, OR TWO?
Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Director Samuel Glover, a former track and field state champion at Pine Bluff High School and All-American at the University of Arkansas, asked Warren why the district -- the predecessors of which saw declining enrollments before annexation -- is still supporting two high schools with separate extracurricular identities, the Pine Bluff Zebras (Fillies for girls teams) and Dollarway Cardinals, and what the plan was for improving the athletic facilities.
"I don't see the same zeal for our athletic program or our facilities" that competing districts put into theirs, Glover said. "How is it I can listen to the games, which I listen to every Friday, and they don't have lights? This is not on the coaches. This is not on the athletic directors. I don't want to do the blame game, but where is the zeal, and where is the plan to really give our children what they deserve in their extracurricular activities?"
When asked by Howell, Warren acknowledged rumors that district and community leaders have discussed ideas of realigning schools by grade level in the future, but it is not known if those ideas include the merger of Dollarway and Pine Bluff schools.
One campus, Forrest Park/Greenville Preschool, has united all pre-kindergarten classes under one roof. The other eight schools -- Southwood, 34th Avenue, Broadmoor, James Matthews, Jack Robey Junior High, Robert F. Morehead Middle, Pine Bluff High and Dollarway High are located in attendance zones that existed before annexation.
"When we talk about the strategic plan, it would have been awesome to start July 1," Warren said. "Between covid and some of those challenges, even if you put that out of the way, we just had to get the schools put together, I'm sorry. July 1 happened, and we just needed to do the work, and not too many months afterward, we got that work done."
Pine Bluff School District parent Trammell Howell addresses concerns during the annual report to the public Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022, at McFadden Gymnasium. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)