By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
Two of three Jacksonville-area school board members led the fight Tuesday night, joining three others, to prevent the Jacksonville Education Foun-dation from resuming talks with Pulaski County Special School District officials aimed at paving the way for a new Jacksonville-north Pulaski County school district as soon as legally possible.
The board in 2008 approved the move in principle and later approved boundaries for the district, then shut off discussion until after a ruling on the district’s unitary status. That’s been before District Judge Brian Miller for months.
Representing the foundation, attorney Patrick Wilson told the board it was time to repeal its year-old resolution suspending negotiation toward detachment of just such a district from PCSSD.
The board, admittedly tired of what it perceived as in-your-face tactics by the Jacksonville district supporters, voted 5-2 to cut off further discussions “until Pulaski County Special School District is declared unitary.”
Jacksonville school board member Bill Vasquez called Wilson’s request political, then got political himself. Gwen Wiliams, the other Jacksonville-area board member, also voted against reopening discussions.
“What this district will look like is the business of this board,” Vasquez said. “A third party (Jacksonville Education Foun-dation) doesn’t have a dog in that hunt. It’s the superintendent’s job and the state education board’s to make those decisions,” he said.
He accused Wilson and former state Rep. Will Bond of being registered lobbyists for the foundation.
“I understand the (Jackson-ville) board of aldermen has put a large pool of money at your disposal. Mike Wilson has opened a charter school. Ben Rice wants to sue us. These people did not support me when I ran for office,” Vasquez said.
Wilson asked Vasquez if he favored a stand-alone Jackson-ville-area school district.
Vasquez, speaking loudly and forcefully, spit out the names of people he considers his enemies who support a Jacksonville district—including “Daniel Gray, who has already said he would run against me.”
He told Wilson, “You don’t have a place in this discussion.”
Vasquez said only 20 percent of the people of Jacksonville really want their own district and the rest just want “clean, safe, good schools.”
“When the judge rules, we’ll know what to do next,” Vasquez said.
“You got a resolution (favoring a stand-alone district) and boundaries. This is a third party trying to use this board,” he added.
After some heated exchanges, Vasquez and the other two school board members who vote reliably with the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers were joined by Mildred Tatum and board president Tim Clark in defeating the effort to rescind the old resolution and reopen talks on how to best form the new district.
Clark, who said he actually supports allowing new talks, nonetheless voted against the measure in order to have standing to bring the matter up again in the future.
The three voters the union can count on are Vasquez, Williams and Sandra Sawyer.
Also opposing the foundation’s effort to reopen talks was the Jacksonville NAACP. According to spokesman Rizelle Aaron, who dropped out of the race for mayor, the group originally supported detachment, but in the past year felt snubbed by the foundation and the city in their efforts to achieve a stand-alone Jacksonville-area district.
Voting in favor of continuing talks were Charlie Wood and Danny Gililland of Sherwood, who represents part of Jacksonville and north Pulaski. The two are being challenged in Tuesday’s school board election by candidates supported by the unions.
Williams said she was against negotiations for several reasons. First, Superintendent Charles Hopson was working to make things better in Jacksonville and should be given more time. Also, she didn’t want to offend Judge Miller, who has the case under advisement. She also thinks black Jacksonville residents are excluded from the process and she doesn’t think they want their own district.
Sawyer said the district, under a new superintendent, with new demands from the state Legislative Audit Committee, doesn’t have the resources to help work toward the eventual new district. She also said it seems Jacksonville-area blacks were not part of the conversation.
