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Outspoken residents in the Pine Bluff School District continued their crusade for what they call a fully elected board amid a change in state laws moving board elections from November to the following March.
Andranette “Ann” Anderson-Gragg, Charline Wright and Julius Wright shared the same message they delivered to the Arkansas Board of Education earlier this month in hopes of overturning the PBSD’s staggered election schedule. Pine Bluff School Board members drew election dates in October 2023, one month after they regained local control from the state board, but those election dates are now modified thanks to Act 503 of this year’s legislature. The local board members, chosen from a pool of 30 applicants, were appointed by a state board committee in late 2022 and were given limited authority, meaning executive decisions were finalized by the state education secretary.
Anderson-Gragg and the Wrights argue the public has been denied an opportunity to elect all seven members of a board at one time. Two of the seven board members — Bonita Corbin and Patrick Lockett — who were not among the original appointees won their elections in November 2024. Lockett defeated Charline Wright, and Corbin ran unopposed.
“This is the thing with me: It’s about the law,” Anderson-Gragg said. “And the law says they’re supposed to wipe out all of those board members and elect seven, and that’s what we want to see happen.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The speakers were among the first in the PBSD to take advantage of another new law requiring school districts to allow the first 30 minutes of a board meeting to be reserved for public comment.
Under Act 902 of 2025, residents of a district may sign in before a board meeting to make their comments for three minutes — the new law states “at least” that much time, but that is the maximum in the PBSD — without addressing any personnel or student disciplinary policies. Under district policy, each speaker must either address the board president or entire board.
While Monday’s board meeting was the first in which public comments were fielded since local control was reinstated, Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree said the district has always had a policy for public comments.
“I felt tonight was a very positive opportunity for public comment for the Pine Bluff School District,” she said.
The commenters, who are members of the Concerned Stakeholders of the Pine Bluff School District — a citizen group not connected to district leadership — read letters advocating for a fully elected board during their comments, including one from Mayor Vivian Flowers. The Concerned Stakeholders have argued for a fully elected board since local control was restored in the PBSD, stating all seats were up for election in other school districts that underwent the same process within the last five years.
The Jefferson County clerk’s office said last August a board seat Anderson-Gragg attempted to run for was not open.
Attorney General Tim Griffin in May 2024 responded to a request from then-State Rep. Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, and State Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, for an opinion on Act 633 of 2023, which states a school district exiting Level 5-intensive support from the Arkansas Department of Education “shall be returned to full local control” no longer than five years after the state assumed authority or a “democratically elected public school district board of directors has been elected during a school election.” The senate bill was approved in the legislature in April 2023, five months before the state board restored local control in the PBSD.
Griffin said in Opinion No. 2024-035 that laws “are presumed to apply prospectively, not retroactively, unless the test requires otherwise,” adding the relevant actions the act requires would have to happen almost three years before Act 633 went into effect. The PBSD went into state control in September 2018, and the state board took the maximum five years from takeover under law to determine the fate of the district.
“It’s about giving the community the input on who sits on their board,” Anderson-Gragg said.
District policy prevents the local board from engaging in public conversation with the commenters, but Board President Sederick Charles Rice said after the meeting the PBSD is unique.
“We had a plan, and we’re on that magnificent journey,” Rice said, referring to the day in September 2023 the state board restored local control in the district. “Part of that was we had already worked up a plan to where we wanted to make sure there was continuity. Coming out of state control, we wanted continuity to make sure we got where we needed to be. We listened, and they have a constitutional right to make their comments, but the law is clear. The new acts that have been passed are clear. And, again, at the end of the day, as I told the state board, it’s all about student success.”
Wright said the group is considering legal action against the district to make all seven board seats up for election, but did not offer a timeline for taking such.
“I’m not sure who they would sue,” Barbaree said.
Rice responded: “Ditto.”
During the meeting, Barbaree outlined the new election dates for the zones of each board member under Act 503 of 2025:
March 3, 2026: Zones 1 (Jomeka Edwards, previously November 2025), 2 (LozAnne Calhoun, previously November 2026) and 3 (Ricky Whitmore Jr., previously November 2027).
March 2028: Zones 4 (Rice, previously November 2028) and 5 (Charles Colen, previously November 2027).
March 2030: Zones 6 (Corbin, previously November 2028) and 7 (Lockett, previously November 2029).
Each board term will last six years, one year longer than when the original election dates were determined. Barbaree said the terms would ensure staggered elections in a 3-2-2 rotation under Act 503.
“So the law says, as nearly as possible, they want an equal number of positions filled every school board election,” Barbaree said. “If we went with four-year terms, it would be a turnover every two years, a half-a-board turnover every two years. So, that’s not equal.”
Despite this, Charline Wright feels the community is being slighted.
“There’s not really community input with us not having elected board members, because they said four or six years. They chose the six,” Wright said. “They were appointed. They were not elected. So now, you’ve chosen to have these terms of six years. To me, we are still under state control when you have their appointed limited board members. I feel that’s denying us our input.”
Candidate petitions for ballot access will be available from the Jefferson County clerk’s office starting Aug. 14. At least 20 signatures must be collected for school board positions. Candidate filing begins at 3 p.m. Nov. 3 and concludes at the same time Nov. 12, by which point the petitions must be turned in.
Thursday: Mayor Flowers states her case for fully elected Pine Bluff School Board.