NANCY DOCKTER REPORTS ON PCSSD RACE
A retired teacher is challenging Charlie Wood for his seat on the Board of Education for the Pulaski County Special School District.
Gloria Lawrence, who retired in June after almost 29 years as a teacher and filed Monday as a candidate, says that she decided to seek the Zone 4 position because of concerns about the financial condition of the district and the board’s continued efforts to sever ties with the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers as the collective bargaining agent for the district’s teachers.
Lawrence retired this year after 23 years at Sylvan Hills Middle School, where she was a gifted and talented teacher and also instructed in geography, Arkansas history and world history. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in education from Arkansas State University.
A Sherwood resident for 25 years, Lawrence is married to Jim Lawrence, a retired U.S. Army colonel. They have three grown children and six grandchildren, three of whom attend public schools in Sylvan Hills.
Lawrence, a longtime PACT member (her membership automatically ended when she retired), says that a year ago she had been considering retirement for family reasons, then the board vote Dec. 8 to decertify the union convinced her it was time.
As the board tried to move forward to establish a personnel-policies committee to replace the union as bargaining agent, she made up her mind to run.
“Of course, I am upset by all that has gone on, but it is also a way to serve the kids,” Lawrence said. “I look at things from a student’s perspective since I am fresh out of the classroom and the teacher’s point of view too. I have a lot of experience that I can bring to the table.”
Lawrence says she is troubled by the discord she has observed on the board and says it is time for a change. One of her top priorities, if elected, would be fostering and maintaining a positive relationship among all district stakeholders.
“There are a lot of hurt feelings, and we need some new faces to start working together,” Lawrence said. “I would like for us to come together as a team. You have to be able to agree to disagree and work together for what the board decides.”
As for healing the deep rift between PACT and the board, Lawrence said, “It is going to take both sides. Both have made mistakes.”
Lawrence said that she has heard complaints from parents that certain board members “have been talked down to and not listened to.”
“Some have contacted Tim Clark, others Charlie Wood – it’s not any one person,” Lawrence said. “I would serve the parents of Sherwood and be willing to listen.”
Lawrence questions some of the spending decisions made by the current board — $81 million for a new high school in Maumelle and paying Rob McGill $87,000 when his term ended as acting superintendent, as well as some hiring decisions by the district – for school-attendance secretaries, an interim liaison at Jacksonville High School and a New York lawyer to help fight PACT in court.
Besides the $440 per hour paid lawyer Lyle Zuckerman, what about his expenses – travel and lodging – when he comes here, Lawrence wonders. She expects the state Board of Education to place PCSSD back on the “fiscally distressed list.”
“I am really worried about all the money that is being spent,” Lawrence said, adding that the last few months of this past school year, markers, copy paper and other basic classroom supplies were totally depleted. She wants to see more schools equipped with computers. Her classroom at Sylvan Hills Middle School had no computers except for the six-year-old one on her desk.
“And we had one projector – that was all the technology I had in my room,” Lawrence said. “The math and literacy labs were busy all of the time. I was able to get into the math lab only once the entire year.”
Lawrence said at one point she sold ads in the yearbook to get the money to buy computers, but “after I got out of that, I had no means for getting computers.”
Lawrence says she supports the decision to build a new Sylvan Hills Middle School because the existing school is in such poor shape. As for the board’s budgeting of $81 million to construct a new high school in Maumelle, that does strike Lawrence as “reckless spending.”
“Maybe I don’t have enough information, but it seems to me that we could have three nice schools for $81 million,” Lawrence said.
“I am a taxpayer and have a dog in this fight too,” said Lawrence, whose three grandchildren attend PCSSD schools in Sherwood.
Other priorities for Lawrence are improving test scores, increasing district enrollment, more transparency in decision making, better facilities, safer schools and fewer discipline problems and an enhanced public image for the district. Lawrence says her phone has been “ringing off the wall” with calls offering support for her campaign. She is eager to get out and start knocking on doors.
“I have taught here so long and been here so long, I hope that my name carries a long ways,” Lawrence said.
First thing Tuesday morning, she got a phone call from a man saying he is upset about the school district.
It was her father, pulling a stunt, saying that she had better get ready for people calling her every 30 minutes.
Lawrence says she is temperamentally suited to handling hot-button situations.
“I am really easygoing and don’t get mad very easily,” Lawrence said. “I stay really calm, even in a bad situation. I don’t yell, holler and scream, even in the classroom. I learned a long time ago so that what people say just rolls off my back.”
