By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
Danny Ebbs, principal of Sylvan Hills High School until this week, has gone fishing, according to Pulaski County Special School District spokeswoman Deborah Roush, setting off a round of interim transfers for three veteran district administrators.
Roush said Ebbs, who had worked for the district for about 40 years, retired for health reasons related to his vision.
Jacksonville Middle School principal Dr. Veronica Perkins replaces Ebbs.
Perkins, who has a PhD, began her career in education as a junior high language-arts teacher in 1994 at Jack Robey Jr. High School in Pine Bluff. She maintained that position for six years before moving into the administrative ranks with PCSSD as an assistant principal at Oak Grove Junior-Senior High School in 2000.
She spent five years learning the intricacies of building-level administration and operations, according to Roush. Hoping to broaden her view of the educational process, Perkins moved into the role of the district language-arts coordinator, where she remained until she returned to building-level administration as a principal in 2007.
Perkins is in the second year of the Master Principal Institute of the Arkansas Leadership Academy. She serves on the district’s Closing the Achievement Gap committee as well as the exhibit coordinator for the Arkansas Association of Middle Level Educators, and instructs as an adjunct professor at Cambridge College (satellite campus) in Memphis. Perkins has three daughters in the district, one each at Clinton Elementary School, Fuller Middle School and Mills University Studies High School.
Star Academy principal Charlotte Wallace replaces Perkins at Jacksonville Middle School, according to Roush, and former Jacksonville Girls Middle School principal Kimala Forrest will take over as principal at the Star Academy.
Forrest most recently served as PCSSD test coordinator, a position that will be eliminated, with the duties absorbed by the district counseling office, Roush said.
Wallace is a graduate of Southern Nazarene University at Oklahoma City, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s in curriculum and instruction. She received her educational-specialist degree from UALR and is working on a doctorate in educational leadership.
Wallace began her teaching career at Mayfield Middle School in Oklahoma City. After three years, she returned to her native Arkansas and began teaching at North Pulaski High School. During that time, she won the Bobby G. Lester Excellence in Education Award for language arts.
After five years at North Pulaski, she became an assistant principal at Jacksonville High School and then an assistant principal at Pinewood Elementary School. In 2009, she was selected to open Star Academy for the Pulaski County Special School District, where she served until Monday.
Forrest has been employed by PCSSD for 21 years in the positions of classroom teacher (social studies, American history, computer technology, keyboarding, adult education and career orientation), assistant principal, principal and, most recently, as district test coordinator.
She is a member of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, the Pulaski County Administrator Network and Arkansas Education Association/National Education Association. She works on numerous committees, including the District Handbook Committee.
She was the 2000 Sherwood Chamber of Commerce Educator of the Year.
Roush says Forrest has a passion for educating and helping students and parents work toward achieving individual successes.
She is a graduate of Jacksonville High School and received a bachelor of science in business education from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and master of science in education in educational leadership from the University of Central Arkansas.
Her two children are Jacksonville High School graduates. Both are college graduates, and one is a law-school graduate. She has three grandchildren.
