Less than four months before election, the Concerned Stakeholders group of residents within the Pine Bluff School District are reaching out to community members in hopes of overturning the district’s staggered election system, although only two of the seven seats are actually up for vote.
The Concerned Stakeholders are challenging the board’s local-control status, which the Arkansas Board of Education granted last September after making decisions for the PBSD for five years.
The citizen group led by retired teachers Charline Wright and Andranette “Ann” Anderson-Gragg and Pine Bluff pastor Julius Wright argue that Act 633 of 2023 — co-sponsored by Pine Bluff mayoral candidate and State Rep. Vivian Flowers (D) — calls for the election of an entire school board once a district has been released from Level 5 intensive support, the highest level of supervision the Arkansas Department of Education can give a district. The act does not specify how many seats should be open for election at one time, but subsection (d) specifies that a district that meets the criteria for exiting Level 5 “shall be returned to full local control” as soon as that determination has been made and a “democratically elected public school district board of directors has been elected during a school election.”
Flowers said in October the act ensured and clarified limitations of state control and that she agreed on having a fully elected board in the interest of democracy, but she also understood why the PBSD board pursued a staggered election cycle.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The PBSD, which has been annexed with the Dollarway School District since 2021, was classified in fiscal distress in September 2018 and placed in state control and Level 5 support two months later.
Upon being granted full local control, the state board granted the PBSD’s request of staggering its board elections for the purpose of continuity. Seven board members — Jomeka Edwards in Zone 1 (through November 2025), Lozanne Calhoun in Zone 2 (through November 2026), Ricky Whitmore Jr. in Zone 3 (through November 2027), board President Sederick Charles Rice in Zone 4 (through November 2028), Charles Colen in Zone 5 (through November 2027), Stephen A. Broughton in Zone 6 (through November 2028) and Lori Walker Guelache in Zone 7 (through Nov. 5 of this year) — were appointed by a state board committee in December 2022 to serve on a limited-authority PBSD board with then-Education Secretary Johnny Key making final decisions. The lots for election dates were drawn last November.
The PBSD board in March appointed Bonita Corbin to succeed Broughton through Nov. 5 after Broughton resigned, making hers and Guelache’s seats up for election that date. Once elected, a board member’s term in the PBSD is for five years.
“Local control means everybody should be off the board and be elected,” Anderson-Gragg said.
Only five people — other than the Wrights and Anderson-Gragg — came out to the Concerned Stakeholders’ meeting Friday evening inside the Main Library meeting room. One visitor received a petition form from Charline Wright at the conclusion of the meeting.
“Some people don’t even know we will be able to elect seats 6 and 7,” Charline Wright said. “They don’t know that. So, I’ve got more work to do.”
Four people, she added, are getting signatures to run, while the group looks for interested candidates in zones 1-5.
“We’re also going to get signatures for the ones that are not up so we can say that we’ve been denied an election,” Charline Wright said. “Therefore, we’re going to have, hopefully, someone in all those zones, 1 through 7, and go up there (to the Jefferson County Courthouse) and let them tell us they cannot file because their seat is not up.”
The Concerned Stakeholders stopped short, however, of committing to legal action if the seats in zones 1-5 are not up for the Nov. 5 election.
Asked about the low attendance at Friday’s meeting, Anderson-Gragg said she was concerned the public doesn’t know about the election progress, as well as the perceived apathy within the district.
“People don’t care, and that’s not good,” she said. “I want people to care about the school district. It’s your school. You should care about it.”
A large crowd including the Wrights attended last September’s state board meeting inside the Pine Bluff Convention Center when the board returned local control to the PBSD. Since then, the Wrights have pleaded their case at each monthly state board meeting in Little Rock.
Gary Newton, CEO of education-economic nonprofit Arkansas Learns (not to be confused with the LEARNS Act signed last year), has been a vocal backer of the Concerned Stakeholders’ pursuit for an all-board election. Newton in June requested the state board to expunge the vote that allowed staggered elections last September.
“If you decline, we encourage anyone wanting to run for school board in Pine Bluff to request a school board election packet from the Jefferson County Clerk, and if denied, request that officials produce the law which allows anyone, including the State Board of Education, to cancel a legally required school board election,” Newton said.
Board President Rice is not fazed by any prospect of a lawsuit.
“If they think they’re going to be successful suing the Arkansas Department of Education, that just continues to stir the pot and keep the message going. It’s all about negativity,” Rice said via phone Friday. “I’m not moved by that. I think that worked 30 years ago. (But now,) OK, go ahead. We’re doing a good job. The majority of the citizens of Pine Bluff know we’re doing a good job. Why are you not satisfied with the job we’re doing?”
The Concerned Stakeholders issued a vote of nonconfidence in PBSD Superintendent Jennifer Barbaree according to a May 23 guest column Charline Wright wrote in The Commercial, accusing Barbaree of a number of actions the group views as unacceptable including promoting a school millage increase while under state authority without being transparent (the increase passed in an August 2023 election). Barbaree, who denied all claims of impropriety, said via email her initial response to the Concerned Stakeholders’ attempts is disappointment.
“There are things within the Pine Bluff School District that are concerning: our students and their academic performance, our ability to hire and retain highly qualified certified and classified employees, the number of students that are in need of intensive mental and physical health support, etc.,” Barbaree said. “Over the past school year, the Pine Bluff School Board has continued to make decisions to improve each of these concerns, because our students are the number one factor in every decision. The fact that there are seven learned patrons representing all areas of the district helping make decisions regarding our students should not be a matter of concern for the community.”
Part of the PBSD’s strategic plan developed in partnership with community stakeholders, Barbaree continued, is to build community trust. She maintains the district has been “completely transparent and truthful” with the community about its operations.
Barbaree reiterated her disappointment that others would cause what she calls mistrust in the district by stating untrue information.
As for Act 633 of 2023, Barbaree said the district is leaning on the opinion of state Attorney General Tim Griffin regarding “legal” aspects of the election.
“The Attorney General stated, ‘laws are presumed to apply prospectively, not retroactively, unless the text requires otherwise,'” Barbaree said. “The relevant actions that Act 633 requires of the State Board would have had to have happened almost three years before Act 633’s effective date. Thus, Act 633 does not apply because it is not retroactive.
“As mentioned earlier, there are much more prevalent issues regarding students that require our immediate attention and energy.”
Vivian Flowers’ name and title were inadvertently omitted from a previous version of this article. The Concerned Stakeholders claim Act 633 calls for an election of an entire school board once the district is released from Level 5.