The Watson Chapel School District board of directors discussed the potential impact on the school district from the Friday decision by a Federal District Court judge to strike down the state’s school choice law at its regular monthly meeting Monday night.
“The school-choice ruling will put a lot of districts in jeopardy,” board member Maxine Nelson said.
District superintendent Danny Hazelwood said that the Watson Chapel district gets 12 percent of its current student body from school choice students.
“About 350 students are school choice,” Hazelwood said. “We have had roughly 100 applications for next year. We haven’t received any direction from the Arkansas Department of Education yet because the ruling just happened. We do know that we cannot act on any new applications for school choice. This is a very serious issue for the district.”
In other business the school board agreed to consider what its next steps should be in moving forward with plans to upgrade district facilities in the wake of the failed April 10 millage election
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“We had a visit from the inspection team with the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation immediately after our last regular board meeting,” Hazelwood said. “They gave us 30 days to respond. They are in agreement with us that Edgewood needs to be replaced. They wanted us to come up with a new plan for the school after the failure of the millage election.
“Do we want to ask for another millage increase for a new middle school or do we want to look at building a new K-1 primary school?,” Hazelwood asked.
“I’ve asked Dr. [Charles] Stein [Facilities Division director] for 90 days to come up with our plan,” Hazelwood said. “He has agreed to give us the extension. Our original plan was to close Edgewood, move those kids to L.L. Owen, move the Owen kids to Coleman and move the Coleman kids to the new middle school. The board needs to be thinking about how we want to attack this.”
Nelson said she feels a new millage vote is critical for the district’s plans.
“I feel we need to ask for another millage increase and this time get more community engagement and involvement,” Nelson said.
Board vice president Sandra C. Boone said that the district’s teachers have to be on board with any new millage campaign for it to be successful.
Hazelwood said that by law the district must wait until the next calendar year to hold another millage election.
Hazelwood provided each director with a copy of a potential district promotion and retention policy that had been prepared by district superintendent of instruction Brenda Melton after she advised him that there was no policy in place.
“There is no such thing as social promotion anymore,” Hazelwood said. “The state expects us to provide some form of program that allows each student to succeed. I tend to believe we have students who we are passing that we probably shouldn’t. It is unacceptable to have a 15-year-old elementary student but at the same time it is against the law to move them up if they can’t do the work.
“Take this material and look it over and for next month let’s have something we can do,” Hazelwood advised the board.
The board held an open hearing for district teacher Mark Smith, who alleged he was required to do extra lunch room duty as retaliation for a lawsuit he previously filed against the school district.
After hearing from Smith’s attorney the board took no action on the issue.
The board approved a series of personnel recommendations from Hazelwood including the hiring of Sha’Vonya Bennett as a secondary math teacher; Barbara Varnell as an elementary math teacher; Jason Scoggins as a junior high social studies teacher; Mark Elliott as a high school business teacher and assistant basketball coach; Taryn Echols as a junior high assistant principal; and Karleigh Oaks as an elementary secretary.
Hazelwood informed the board that he has accepted the resignations of Rodney Echols, Samantha Terry, Marci Morgan Jeter and LeShandra Martin.