The Little Rock School District is asking for community participation in several events this week, including two community conversations/forums, the School Board's regular monthly business meeting and a school-based pantry drive titled "Stock the Rock the Wright Way."
Superintendent Jermall Wright will preside at two separate "Community Connections & Conversations" sessions, with the first one targeted to the families of Mabelvale Middle School at 5 p.m. today at the school, 10811 Mabelvale West Road.
At 6 p.m. on Wednesday , Wright will join City of Little Rock Director Andrea Lewis at the West Central Community Center, 8616 Colonel Glenn Road.
The community forums come at a time when Wright has drafted a plan to organize schools into three networks or tiers -- priority, on-watch and autonomous -- with each tier receiving varying levels of district support and resources based on achievement needs of students.
To that end, Wright recommended and the School Board last week approved the filling of four new leadership positions. The three newly named assistant superintendents -- who will oversee the networks -- and their base salaries are Shana Spriggs-Loring, $133,104; Amy B. Cooper, $129,289; and Karen Bradshaw, who is a former deputy superintendent in Conway and will earn $141,073.
Hal Harris was hired to be executive director of leadership development, at a base salary of $121,985.
Also on Wednesday, from noon to 1 p.m., the Little Rock district is inviting members of the public to help stock the pantries at various campuses with non-perishable food that can be prepared without a stove, baby-care products, personal hygiene items and household cleaning products, including detergent.
Wright will be on hand at Washington Elementary for the drive-thru/drop-off pantry drive but other schools are also asking for supplies.
More detailed information can be found about what Washington and the other schools need here: https://www.lrsd.org/STRWrightWay.
Not all schools made requests for support but those schools have been enlisted to collect items on behalf of a neighboring Little Rock schools that have made requests.
District leaders are asking those people who drop off any items at a school to take a couple of photos at the drop-off and post them to to social media, using #StocktheRock as a way to spread the word about the pantry drive.
The Little Rock School Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the district office 810 W. Markham St., for its regular monthly business meeting.
Agenda items include a proposal to divide schools into tiered categories of support, with those schools that have the lowest state-applied A to F letter grades becoming "priority" schools and receiving greater district support than "on-watch" and "autonomous" schools.
The meeting is open to the public. The district also streams its meetings on its YouTube page.
For quick access, viewers may type www.lrsdlive.com into their browsers and be directly connected to the District's YouTube page.
The District also streams meetings on LRSDTV.org, and broadcasts on Comcast Channel 4 and U-verse Channel 99.