Editor's note: On Wednesday, members of the Pine Bluff School District educators' union met with a representative of the Arkansas Department of Education to air their frustration over a perceived lack of communication with Superintendent Barbara Warren about the district's future, campus realignment and financial issues, among other topics. The following is the first of a two-part series on Warren's reaction to the complaints.
Employees have criticized Pine Bluff School District Superintendent Barbara Warren over lack of communication on consideration of campus realignment, a four-day week and back pay of transportation department workers, among other issues.
Faced with criticism internally and from the city's highest office over a perceived lack of communication, Warren said she understands such complaints as the district heads into spring break. She addressed those issues Thursday, a day after PBSD employees who are members of the Arkansas Education Association held a meeting with a field representative from the union at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
Warren did not attend the meeting and said she was not invited, adding she didn't know about it until Tuesday. Warren added she supports the members having an opportunity to air their concerns about pressing issues.
Among the concerns, according to an AEA member who did not want to be identified for this article, transportation workers are requesting pay commensurate with their experience, adding that some who have 25 or more years' experience had their contracts frozen on the seventh of 25 steps of the pay schedule.
Asked about grievances, which Warren defined as "formal complaints," reportedly filed against the district over back pay, she said those have "not been communicated" to her, although she has heard verbal complaints.
"At some point, and there's more research to be done, what I told them is that their salaries did get frozen before I became superintendent," said Warren, who took over the PBSD while still leading the now-annexed Dollarway School District at the start of the 2020-21 school year. "I'm not sure what was done in the past. I am going to assess that and I will put them in the right spot for their contracts next year. On why their contracts were frozen, I don't think that was right, either. I'm not mad at them. I'm aware of that."
NEW SCHOOL PLAN
The AEA member said teachers expressed their frustration that the PBSD would release a plan to realign each grade level by campus for the 2022-23 school year without prior knowledge from district leaders, a plan that, Warren told The Commercial, is not final.
Monica McMurray, the PBSD director of retention and recruitment, said she shared with employees at the AEA meeting a March 9 email from Warren to district leaders, including principals and support staff, following another meeting about the planned grade configuration -- one pre-kindergarten campus, four kindergarten-through-sixth grade campuses, one seventh- and eighth-grade campus and two ninth- through 12th-grade campuses.
"Moving along the conversation about our grade center configuration will make such a difference!" Warren wrote in the email. "We will promote great savings, a safety climate shift, and even staffing benefits I believe!
"As we move forward, the configuration below is set in concrete -- but concrete just before it is firmly dry -- where if you find that the shape is not quite right you can still make a little tweak here or there. You can't start all over from scratch, but you can still monitor and adjust. In the next couple of weeks before our facilities meeting, we will need to be there."
The first PBSD public facilities committee organizational meeting will be held at 6 p.m. March 29 at Pine Bluff High School Little Theater. Those interested in joining the committee are asked to sign up at: tinyurl.com/ymxkn496.
The plan, Warren explained, would maintain Forrest Park/Greenville Preschool as the pre-K campus and shift sixth graders back to Southwood, 34th Avenue, Broadmoor and James Matthews elementaries, a year after fifth grade was relocated from Robert F. Morehead Middle School to Matthews when the former Dollarway School District was annexed into the PBSD. She also confirmed Morehead would house the seventh- and eighth-graders, while the present Jack Robey Junior High School (grades 6-8) would temporarily serve as Pine Bluff High School, and Dollarway High School would remain in its current grades nine-through-12 configuration.
WHAT ABOUT THE CURRENT PBHS?
Moving Pine Bluff High to the Jack Robey campus would place students in a more secure location, district officials believe.
PBSD and state leaders have addressed the issue of multiple points of entry at the present Pine Bluff High School, which has multiple outside walkways between buildings and has dealt with violent student brawls that have led to arrests in recent months. Warren said many activities and extracurricular classes, including a gifted-talented program, STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics), athletics and cosmetology would still be based at the present PBHS.
"We would, for the most part, move the grade centers in a fashion where we can lock down essentially as needed and have weapons detectors, but there's also a staffing benefit when you're reduced in size," Warren said.
The part of town where Pine Bluff High is located has experienced "a myriad of crimes involving gun violence and theft," said Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education, which operates the PBSD. Gang activity and other criminal behavior "severely" impacts campus culture, she added.
"Additionally, the number of vacant houses in the area has created a safety concern for students walking to and from school," Smith said. "It is impossible to improve academic outcomes when students and teachers are fearful of what might happen to them before, during, and after school hours."
The idea of reassigning sixth grade to elementaries is about helping students maintain academic performance while transitioning to another level, Warren explained.
"With sixth grade, we're not talking about not so much moving them back, but letting them move," she said. "It will change, but you'll just stay here and be in sixth grade. There is research that speaks to transitions. Oftentimes, students lose something in the transitions. There's not going to be so many fewer transitions, but holding onto a student and keeping them at elementary when learning loss-wise, we have students who have not met that grade or the next grade's levels, a sixth-grader will be in an environment supporting that grade level at an elementary school."
Sunday: Warren explains the thought behind a singular seventh- and eighth-grade campus as the PBSD addresses the future of its high school campuses.
Under a proposed facilities plan by Superintendent Barbara Warren, if approved, Jack Robey Junior High School would temporarily become Pine Bluff High School until a new high school is built. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)