Pine Bluff School District board members authorized the sale of the Oak Park and Indiana Street elementary buildings and its former downtown administration building at Tuesday’s regular board meeting.
Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree announced the district received three offers each for the elementary buildings and two for the multistory downtown building on Sixth Avenue. The official sales are not complete, she said, but the best offers are being accepted.
Barbaree said in July the district wanted to sell the buildings to eliminate the costs of insuring and keeping them up, as well as remove liability for homeless people who reportedly break into the buildings.
Shawn Carroll of East Harding Construction Co. diagrammed the new parking structure for Jordan Stadium amid ongoing demolition of old buildings at Pine Bluff High School’s West 11th Avenue campus.
The district will utilize general parking lots near the Arkansas River Education Service Cooperative, the AT&T buildings and the old West 11th Avenue lot. The lot just southeast of the stadium will be designated for Americans with Disabilities Act parking only.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
On game days, Laurel Street, which runs behind the home bleachers, will be open to one-way northbound traffic only, and Ninth Avenue along the north end zone will be blocked off starting at 6 p.m.
Carroll also said demolition of McFadden Gymnasium is expected to be complete by Sept. 9, and demolition of the McGeorge and Trice classroom buildings is scheduled to be finished by October. The gym at Trice will remain open through the 2025 season as a dressing area for visiting football teams.
Barbaree acknowledged the efforts of bus driver Carl Smith to extinguish a fire to a police cruiser that rear-ended his bus near James Matthews Elementary School on Dollarway Road on Monday morning. No children were on board.
Smith is a former teacher and boys basketball coach at Pine Bluff High School. He has also served as an assistant golf coach at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
The officer who drove the cruiser was listed in stable condition at Jefferson Regional Medical Center as of Monday.
PERSONNEL MOVES
The district approved the following classified hires:
Custodians (retroactive to July 29): Chyann Paskel, Ruthie Wells, Katoya Hillard, Ashley Rockett, Keith Boyd and Gloria Dye;
Security guards: Dalton Rankin and Jeffrey Cannady;
Transportation: Marie Kearney;
Health services: registered nurse Brianna Battles.
Resignations were accepted from Malak Staten and Marquise Ringo. A recommendation to employ Desmond Johnson was rescinded.