July
At a special meeting in early July, the Sherwood City Council finally relented and voted to allow ice-cream trucks to service the city.
It was 10-year-old Jenna Steele of Sherwood who took up the ice-cream truck cause several months ago. She put in a call to Mayor Virginia Hillman inquiring about why there were no ice- cream trucks in Sherwood. Before this foray into local activism, Steele had never spoken to Hillman or attended a city council meeting. After the vote, Steele got up and marched straight up to Alderman Charles Harmon to thank him for introducing the ordinance that won unanimous favor.
“I feel great,” Steele said with a big smile.
Prior to the vote, Sherwood was the only city in Pulaski County with a ban on ice-cream trucks.
Jacksonville’s Recycling Edu-cation Park was selected by the Arkansas Recycling Coalition to receive the 2010 award for Recycling Education Program of the Year. Even though the announcement was made in July, the award was not presented until September at the ARC annual awards luncheon.
A one-stop center in Cabot where area residents may apply for unemployment, get help finding jobs they are already trained for or get the training they need to find jobs opened on the top floor of the old Bank of Cabot in July.
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams was so pleased about the center opening that he called a press conference to talk about it. “We’ve never experienced state agencies in Cabot like we have now,” the mayor said.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” he added.
Rizelle Aaron, a candidate for the Jacksonville mayoral race, dropped out, leaving Mayor Gary Fletcher unopposed.
A statement on his Aaron 4 Mayor Facebook page shortly before the page was taken down said, “It is with deep regret that I will withdraw from the mayor’s race due to health concerns. Thank you for your overwhelming support. I know we would have won.”
In a separate e-mail sent to The Leader, he stated, “Due to medical reasons diagnosed last week, I was advised by my doctor that the stress of this campaign will delay and hinder the recovery process.”
Tim Ballard, the former principal and boys basketball coach of Abundant Life School, faced six sexual-assault charges stemming from his relationship with students that could put him behind bars for 130 years.
According to Terry Ball, with the prosecuting attorney’s office, Ballard was facing one count of first-degree sexual assault, a Class A felony, which could net Ballard six to 30 years in prison.
Ballard was also facing five counts of second-degree sexual assault, a Class B felony, punishable by five to 20 years in prison on each count.
His trial starts Jan. 5.
The Jacksonville City Council agreed to spend slightly more than $1 million to revamp two major intersections.
Aldermen agreed to a trimmed-down redesign of the James-Main-Dupree downtown intersection and a roundabout to solve backup and speeding problems at Main Street and Harris Road.
The $512,000 plan for the downtown intersection, which is currently being put into place, included trees, greenery, new fluted street lights, brick-lined crosswalks, a pedestrian light, sidewalks, a rebuilt retaining wall and the removal of old wooden telephone poles.
A roundabout, which will cost up to $590,000, was recommended to solve the traffic problems at Harris and Main, especially when North Pulaski High School and Tolleson Elementary are in session.
The city has a bottleneck problem at this intersection especially when school is in session. “We have to safely keep traffic moving,” Whisker said.
Ryan Dean, 30, was appointed new principal of Jacksonville’s Lighthouse Charter School.
Dean replaced Nigena Wash-ington, who returned to her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.
Dean had five years experience in education. He taught grades 9 through 12 at the private Flint Hill School in Fairfax County, Va., and for four years was a secondary teacher and administrator at Community Charter School in Cambridge, Mass.
The Pulaski County Special School District Board, at an emergency meeting, approved agreements to settle complaints by two district employees with pay-offs totaling up to $275,000.
After the board meeting, Superintendent Charles Hopson said that he felt that it was “more expedient” to settle the two lawsuits out of court, but that he wants the district and board to chart a new course in personnel relations.
The board voted to pay $200,000 by the end of the month to Donna Humphries, a counselor at Sherwood Elementary School. Humphries filed a complaint in 2006 and an amended complaint in 2007, both in U.S. District Court, alleging that she had been a victim of discrimination and breach of contract.
The board voted to pay Mike Nellums $50,000 – a “personal payment” in the terms of the settlement agreement – as well as up to $25,000 for attorney’s fees to settle his complaint against the district arising from an investigation of his performance while principal of Jacksonville Boys Middle School, and the former Superintendent Rob McGill’s recommendation that he be fired. The district will also pay Nellums’ taxes on the $50,000.
Within two weeks, the board rescinded its settlement with Humphries and that case is now in court.
Aldermen agreed to a trimmed-down redesign of the James-Main-Dupree downtown intersection and a roundabout to solve backup and speeding problems at Main Street and Harris Road.
The $512,000 plan for the downtown intersection, which is currently being put into place, included trees, greenery, new fluted street lights, brick-lined crosswalks, a pedestrian light, sidewalks, a rebuilt retaining wall and the removal of old wooden telephone poles.
A roundabout, which will cost up to $590,000, was recommended to solve the traffic problems at Harris and Main, especially when North Pulaski High School and Tolleson Elementary are in session.
The city has a bottleneck problem at this intersection especially when school is in session. “We have to safely keep traffic moving,” Whisker said.
Ryan Dean, 30, was appointed new principal of Jacksonville’s Lighthouse Charter School.
Dean replaced Nigena Wash-ington, who returned to her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.
Dean had five years experience in education. He taught grades 9 through 12 at the private Flint Hill School in Fairfax County, Va., and for four years was a secondary teacher and administrator at Community Charter School in Cambridge, Mass.
The Pulaski County Special School District Board, at an emergency meeting, approved agreements to settle complaints by two district employees with pay-offs totaling up to $275,000.
After the board meeting, Superintendent Charles Hopson said that he felt that it was “more expedient” to settle the two lawsuits out of court, but that he wants the district and board to chart a new course in personnel relations.
The board voted to pay $200,000 by the end of the month to Donna Humphries, a counselor at Sherwood Elementary School. Humphries filed a complaint in 2006 and an amended complaint in 2007, both in U.S. District Court, alleging that she had been a victim of discrimination and breach of contract.
The board voted to pay Mike Nellums $50,000 – a “personal payment” in the terms of the settlement agreement – as well as up to $25,000 for attorney’s fees to settle his complaint against the district arising from an investigation of his performance while principal of Jacksonville Boys Middle School, and the former Superintendent Rob McGill’s recommendation that he be fired. The district will also pay Nellums’ taxes on the $50,000.
Within two weeks, the board rescinded its settlement with Humphries and that case is now in court.
Eddie Thomas Buchy, 29, of Ward pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter in connection with the beating death in jail of Jerry Luker, and also to one count of hindering apprehension.
Lonoke Circuit Judge Phillip Whiteacre sentenced Buchy to two consecutive terms of 108 months in prison. That’s 18 years minus credit for the 186 days he’s already served.
He was sentenced as a habitual criminal.
Buchy, David Chad Lane, 32, of Cabot and Wesley May Minnie, 22, of Cabot, all were charged with second-degree murder in connection with Luker’s death following an alleged fight in a Lonoke County Jail bathroom.
Lane pled guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Lane allegedly knocked Luker to the floor, where he struck his head and never recovered.
Minnie pleaded guilty later in July to a reduced charge of hindering apprehension and was sentenced to five years in the Department of Corrections.
Minnie was already an inmate at the Cummins Unit, where he was serving a five-year sentence for crimes including sexual indecency with a child, residential burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia, theft of property, breaking and entering, theft by receiving, failure to register and probation revocation.
PCSSD officials spent part of July conferring with attorneys and pondering options after a judge ruled that the district had violated state law in its efforts to cut off the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers as the collective bargaining agent for district teachers and do away with existing personnel policies and teacher contracts.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox responded to two related lawsuits, one filed by PACT and a class-action suit by five teachers on behalf of all PCSSD certified personnel. The suits challenged actions by the PCSSD school board to replace the union with a committee made up of teachers and administrators and institute a new set of personnel policies and teacher contracts.
Fox found there “was no just and reasonable cause for the PCSSD board’s vote on May 17, 2010, to terminate the plaintiffs’ contracts.”
While Fox ruled that the district, by state law, has the authority to terminate recognition of the union, but “the vote of April 20, 2010, is declared null and void, and the professionally negotiated agreement remains in effect between the parties.”
Fox ordered both sides to participate in mediation to work out the terms of the contract and other differences and to reach a resolution. All school board members, PACT officers and members of the newly formed personnel policies committee were ordered to take part.
Lonoke Circuit Judge Phillip Whiteacre sentenced Buchy to two consecutive terms of 108 months in prison. That’s 18 years minus credit for the 186 days he’s already served.
He was sentenced as a habitual criminal.
Buchy, David Chad Lane, 32, of Cabot and Wesley May Minnie, 22, of Cabot, all were charged with second-degree murder in connection with Luker’s death following an alleged fight in a Lonoke County Jail bathroom.
Lane pled guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. Lane allegedly knocked Luker to the floor, where he struck his head and never recovered.
Minnie pleaded guilty later in July to a reduced charge of hindering apprehension and was sentenced to five years in the Department of Corrections.
Minnie was already an inmate at the Cummins Unit, where he was serving a five-year sentence for crimes including sexual indecency with a child, residential burglary, possession of drug paraphernalia, theft of property, breaking and entering, theft by receiving, failure to register and probation revocation.
PCSSD officials spent part of July conferring with attorneys and pondering options after a judge ruled that the district had violated state law in its efforts to cut off the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers as the collective bargaining agent for district teachers and do away with existing personnel policies and teacher contracts.
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox responded to two related lawsuits, one filed by PACT and a class-action suit by five teachers on behalf of all PCSSD certified personnel. The suits challenged actions by the PCSSD school board to replace the union with a committee made up of teachers and administrators and institute a new set of personnel policies and teacher contracts.
Fox found there “was no just and reasonable cause for the PCSSD board’s vote on May 17, 2010, to terminate the plaintiffs’ contracts.”
While Fox ruled that the district, by state law, has the authority to terminate recognition of the union, but “the vote of April 20, 2010, is declared null and void, and the professionally negotiated agreement remains in effect between the parties.”
Fox ordered both sides to participate in mediation to work out the terms of the contract and other differences and to reach a resolution. All school board members, PACT officers and members of the newly formed personnel policies committee were ordered to take part.
Northwood Middle School failed to meet accreditation standards for the third year in a row, giving the state the option to close the school.
Sylvan Hills High School was in its second year of accreditation probation in a report released by the state education department in July.
Six other schools in the Jacksonville-Sherwood area, most of the schools in Beebe and two in Cabot had problems with their accreditation, according to the annual state report.
In the Pulaski County Special School District, Sherwood, Cato, Arnold Drive and Murrell Taylor elementary schools and North Pulaski High School were cited for problems with meeting all the accreditation standards. Jacksonville High School was placed on probationary status.
In Beebe, every school except the Badger Academy and the Beebe Early Childhood program were cited for problems.
In Cabot, the high school and Cabot Middle School North were cited for problems.
A letter, dated July 12, from state fair manager Ralph Shoptaw to Jill Jones, who works for Saline County, said, “This is to advise you that the Arkansas Livestock Show Association has narrowed its search for a suitable site for a new fair complex to an area generally defined by I-40, I-440, Wooten Road and the Pulaski County line and adjacent property. Your proposed sites don’t fall within these parameters.”
An analysis of the suitability of three Jacksonville sites as a location for the state fair had already started.
Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said that the letter is encouragement that the fair will eventually be relocated to the Jacksonville area.
The 189th Airlift Wing of the Arkansas National Guard received the last of three C-130s with avionics-modernization program kits from Boeing, as that company gears up for initial production of 20 more AMPs to update and upgrade C-130Hs.
The avionics kits cost about one-tenth of a new C-130J, which sell for $80 million, giving the older planes many of the same features as the new models.
The C-130 AMP cockpit emulates the C-130J models in many ways, including a fully integrated, night-vision-goggle-compatible, digital-glass cockpit and new digital avionics that increase situational awareness and enhance safety.
Sylvan Hills High School was in its second year of accreditation probation in a report released by the state education department in July.
Six other schools in the Jacksonville-Sherwood area, most of the schools in Beebe and two in Cabot had problems with their accreditation, according to the annual state report.
In the Pulaski County Special School District, Sherwood, Cato, Arnold Drive and Murrell Taylor elementary schools and North Pulaski High School were cited for problems with meeting all the accreditation standards. Jacksonville High School was placed on probationary status.
In Beebe, every school except the Badger Academy and the Beebe Early Childhood program were cited for problems.
In Cabot, the high school and Cabot Middle School North were cited for problems.
A letter, dated July 12, from state fair manager Ralph Shoptaw to Jill Jones, who works for Saline County, said, “This is to advise you that the Arkansas Livestock Show Association has narrowed its search for a suitable site for a new fair complex to an area generally defined by I-40, I-440, Wooten Road and the Pulaski County line and adjacent property. Your proposed sites don’t fall within these parameters.”
An analysis of the suitability of three Jacksonville sites as a location for the state fair had already started.
Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said that the letter is encouragement that the fair will eventually be relocated to the Jacksonville area.
The 189th Airlift Wing of the Arkansas National Guard received the last of three C-130s with avionics-modernization program kits from Boeing, as that company gears up for initial production of 20 more AMPs to update and upgrade C-130Hs.
The avionics kits cost about one-tenth of a new C-130J, which sell for $80 million, giving the older planes many of the same features as the new models.
The C-130 AMP cockpit emulates the C-130J models in many ways, including a fully integrated, night-vision-goggle-compatible, digital-glass cockpit and new digital avionics that increase situational awareness and enhance safety.
Col. Greg Otey, former commander of Little Rock Air Force Base, was headed to the Pentagon as senior Air Force planner in Joint Chief’s of Staff and National Security Council matters.
Otey, who was also commander of the base’s 19th Airlift Wing, formally handed over both commands to Col. Michael Minihan in August.
Minihan was the vice commander of the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base, California.
Since Otey took command in January 2009, privatization of base housing finally got headed in the right direction with new partners Hunt-Pinnacle.
The previous privatization effort, American Eagle, was a dismal failure, but Hunt-Pinnacle bought the housing contract.
“The Joint Education Center broke ground,” he said. “That’s huge.”
The new Base Exchange opened and Congress appropriated the money for a new security building.
Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman met with county mayors and their representatives in July and said the new $6 million detention center was on schedule to open in February or March.
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams, cited the expense and concerns about liability. He would expected to use it as a 12-hour holding facility while getting prisoners to the new 140-bed Lonoke lockup.
Williams said Cabot would pay the county to hold its prisoners.
He asked how the county would pay the cost of operating the new, larger detention center.
“That’s a good question,” Troutman said. “We’ve got to create some revenue out of that jail.”
The Beebe School Board approved the sale of $3.6 million in direct-pay qualified school construction bonds, a type of second-lien bonds. The interest rate of 5.23 percent on the construction bonds was subsidized by the federal government with stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The bond money was used to pay a portion of the new $7.5 million career and technical center under construction at the high school.
Without admitting responsibility, the city of Cabot settled a wrongful-death suit filed in October 2009 after a Little Rock man hanged himself in the city jail in September 2008.
The family of Donnie Isom, 26, was asking $450,000. The city offered $50,000, but after a day of negotiation on July 15, a $256,000 settlement was reached.
The suit alleged that the city was liable for Isom’s death after he was locked up for being drunk and disorderly because those he came into contact with after his arrest were so poorly trained that they didn’t stop him from hanging himself with the blanket they gave him.
“They started with a figure and they worked down and we worked up,” Cabot City Attorney Jim Taylor said of the daylong settlement conference that kept the city from having to go to trial in September and possibly spending more than the amount of the settlement.
The $256,000 was paid by the Arkansas Municipal League, which carries the city’s liability insurance.
Lonoke School District decided in July that all ninth-graders would use hand-held computers—modified smart phones, actually—to receive their assignments in core classes, do research on the Web, work on their homework and turn it in to their teachers for feedback and grades, according to Superintendent John Tackett.
Many students in rural school districts like Lonoke don’t have regular access to computers, Tackett says, but new software from GoKnow Mobile Learning Environment changes all that.
“It’s all about kids having access,” says Tackett, who is always looking for teaching and diagnostic tools to help Lonoke students succeed.
The phones do not have voice, text or e-mail capabilities.
“If we don’t take a leap, we’ll be left behind,” Tackett said.
Against a backdrop of confusion and rancor surrounding the battle between the Pulaski County Special School District’s Board and its teachers’ union, board member Bill Vasquez, in July, asked the state to dissolve that board.
Vasquez said he had written state Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell three times asking him to dissolve the board, and had written to his predecessor, Ken James, to do the same.
Education Department spokesman Julia Thompson said no such letters had been received but she said Vasquez had met with Kimbrell to discuss general concerns regarding PCSSD.
Under certain conditions, the state board has the authority to dissolve a school board, according to Thompson, but those relate to academic shortcomings, financial or facilities problems or accreditation.
August
A sweltering heat wave hit the area the end of July and continued into August with the thermometer hitting triple digits about eight days in a row.
As of Aug. 1 the summer heat average was ahead of the all-time record set back in 1954.
Nationwide, the average number of heat-related deaths is 162 per year. In Arkansas, through July, there had been five deaths attributed to the heat.
The first 100-degree day in almost two years came July 15 (there were none in all of 2009). Since then, there were seven other 100-degree plus days in July, add that to the August heat and the area had seen 21 days of 100 degrees or more this summer.
Less than three weeks before the first day of classes, Jacksonville High School’s new principal, June Haynie, left a letter of retirement/resignation on Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Charles Hopson’s desk.
Haynie had only been on the job for three weeks when she announced she had decided to resign.
Bobby Pruitt, a longtime assistant principal at Jacksonville High School, moved up to serve as interim principal.
Karl Brown was also assigned over the summer to the high school from Hopson’s office. “He’s a director on special assignment from my office to provide oversight.” Hopson said.
Brown was assigned to provide the central office perspective, instead of having the central office support off site, Hopson said.
It was the largest crowd at a Jacksonville City Council meeting in about 10 years. Not since Walmart wanted to build a supercenter in the city had an idea attracted such opposition.
The idea presented at the August meeting was to extend the city limits north and northwest, adding about 3.8 square miles to the city, and adding another 0.36 square mile to the southeastern edge of the city.
Most of the 100-plus people in attendance were against the annexation, and most particularly the northern segment.
The council took no action and no ordinance was even prepared. But aldermen did listen for almost three hours.
Nick Gray, who operated a business in the northern acreage that Jacksonville wanted to bring into the city, said, “I’m already paying sales tax, property tax, Social Security tax, this tax and that tax, and now you want more!”
He then turned his pants pockets inside out flinging two pennies towards the aldermen. “Shame on you for wanting me to make you money. Leave us alone.”
That was the sentiment voiced by most of the speakers.
“We don’t want your rules. We bought land out here to get away from your rules,” said Partne Daugherty.
Ralph Pridmore said his family had been paying taxes on his 100 acres for 100 years. “And now you want it. I have a problem with that.”
Voters rejected the city’s annexation plan in November’s general election.
Cabot’s newest school, Mountain Springs Elementary, opened Aug. 19.
It is the first school in the state to teach math and social studies without textbooks. Teachers instead prepared and shared lessons on computers. All of the city’s other elementary schools will implement the digital plans next year.
Mountain Springs Elementary is Cabot’s ninth elementary school.
The district says it is saving money by purchasing educational software rather than purchasing textbooks. Each classroom has a SMART Board, an interactive blackboard; a SMART Slate, a portable digital tablet with a pen that displays handwriting on an interactive whiteboard; a desktop computer, a document camera, TurningPoint individual digital handheld keypads for students to answer questions and display results instantly, and a Flip Camera, a handheld video camcorder.
Otey, who was also commander of the base’s 19th Airlift Wing, formally handed over both commands to Col. Michael Minihan in August.
Minihan was the vice commander of the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base, California.
Since Otey took command in January 2009, privatization of base housing finally got headed in the right direction with new partners Hunt-Pinnacle.
The previous privatization effort, American Eagle, was a dismal failure, but Hunt-Pinnacle bought the housing contract.
“The Joint Education Center broke ground,” he said. “That’s huge.”
The new Base Exchange opened and Congress appropriated the money for a new security building.
Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman met with county mayors and their representatives in July and said the new $6 million detention center was on schedule to open in February or March.
Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams, cited the expense and concerns about liability. He would expected to use it as a 12-hour holding facility while getting prisoners to the new 140-bed Lonoke lockup.
Williams said Cabot would pay the county to hold its prisoners.
He asked how the county would pay the cost of operating the new, larger detention center.
“That’s a good question,” Troutman said. “We’ve got to create some revenue out of that jail.”
The Beebe School Board approved the sale of $3.6 million in direct-pay qualified school construction bonds, a type of second-lien bonds. The interest rate of 5.23 percent on the construction bonds was subsidized by the federal government with stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The bond money was used to pay a portion of the new $7.5 million career and technical center under construction at the high school.
Without admitting responsibility, the city of Cabot settled a wrongful-death suit filed in October 2009 after a Little Rock man hanged himself in the city jail in September 2008.
The family of Donnie Isom, 26, was asking $450,000. The city offered $50,000, but after a day of negotiation on July 15, a $256,000 settlement was reached.
The suit alleged that the city was liable for Isom’s death after he was locked up for being drunk and disorderly because those he came into contact with after his arrest were so poorly trained that they didn’t stop him from hanging himself with the blanket they gave him.
“They started with a figure and they worked down and we worked up,” Cabot City Attorney Jim Taylor said of the daylong settlement conference that kept the city from having to go to trial in September and possibly spending more than the amount of the settlement.
The $256,000 was paid by the Arkansas Municipal League, which carries the city’s liability insurance.
Lonoke School District decided in July that all ninth-graders would use hand-held computers—modified smart phones, actually—to receive their assignments in core classes, do research on the Web, work on their homework and turn it in to their teachers for feedback and grades, according to Superintendent John Tackett.
Many students in rural school districts like Lonoke don’t have regular access to computers, Tackett says, but new software from GoKnow Mobile Learning Environment changes all that.
“It’s all about kids having access,” says Tackett, who is always looking for teaching and diagnostic tools to help Lonoke students succeed.
The phones do not have voice, text or e-mail capabilities.
“If we don’t take a leap, we’ll be left behind,” Tackett said.
Against a backdrop of confusion and rancor surrounding the battle between the Pulaski County Special School District’s Board and its teachers’ union, board member Bill Vasquez, in July, asked the state to dissolve that board.
Vasquez said he had written state Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell three times asking him to dissolve the board, and had written to his predecessor, Ken James, to do the same.
Education Department spokesman Julia Thompson said no such letters had been received but she said Vasquez had met with Kimbrell to discuss general concerns regarding PCSSD.
Under certain conditions, the state board has the authority to dissolve a school board, according to Thompson, but those relate to academic shortcomings, financial or facilities problems or accreditation.
August
A sweltering heat wave hit the area the end of July and continued into August with the thermometer hitting triple digits about eight days in a row.
As of Aug. 1 the summer heat average was ahead of the all-time record set back in 1954.
Nationwide, the average number of heat-related deaths is 162 per year. In Arkansas, through July, there had been five deaths attributed to the heat.
The first 100-degree day in almost two years came July 15 (there were none in all of 2009). Since then, there were seven other 100-degree plus days in July, add that to the August heat and the area had seen 21 days of 100 degrees or more this summer.
Less than three weeks before the first day of classes, Jacksonville High School’s new principal, June Haynie, left a letter of retirement/resignation on Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Charles Hopson’s desk.
Haynie had only been on the job for three weeks when she announced she had decided to resign.
Bobby Pruitt, a longtime assistant principal at Jacksonville High School, moved up to serve as interim principal.
Karl Brown was also assigned over the summer to the high school from Hopson’s office. “He’s a director on special assignment from my office to provide oversight.” Hopson said.
Brown was assigned to provide the central office perspective, instead of having the central office support off site, Hopson said.
It was the largest crowd at a Jacksonville City Council meeting in about 10 years. Not since Walmart wanted to build a supercenter in the city had an idea attracted such opposition.
The idea presented at the August meeting was to extend the city limits north and northwest, adding about 3.8 square miles to the city, and adding another 0.36 square mile to the southeastern edge of the city.
Most of the 100-plus people in attendance were against the annexation, and most particularly the northern segment.
The council took no action and no ordinance was even prepared. But aldermen did listen for almost three hours.
Nick Gray, who operated a business in the northern acreage that Jacksonville wanted to bring into the city, said, “I’m already paying sales tax, property tax, Social Security tax, this tax and that tax, and now you want more!”
He then turned his pants pockets inside out flinging two pennies towards the aldermen. “Shame on you for wanting me to make you money. Leave us alone.”
That was the sentiment voiced by most of the speakers.
“We don’t want your rules. We bought land out here to get away from your rules,” said Partne Daugherty.
Ralph Pridmore said his family had been paying taxes on his 100 acres for 100 years. “And now you want it. I have a problem with that.”
Voters rejected the city’s annexation plan in November’s general election.
Cabot’s newest school, Mountain Springs Elementary, opened Aug. 19.
It is the first school in the state to teach math and social studies without textbooks. Teachers instead prepared and shared lessons on computers. All of the city’s other elementary schools will implement the digital plans next year.
Mountain Springs Elementary is Cabot’s ninth elementary school.
The district says it is saving money by purchasing educational software rather than purchasing textbooks. Each classroom has a SMART Board, an interactive blackboard; a SMART Slate, a portable digital tablet with a pen that displays handwriting on an interactive whiteboard; a desktop computer, a document camera, TurningPoint individual digital handheld keypads for students to answer questions and display results instantly, and a Flip Camera, a handheld video camcorder.
Unlike Jacksonville and Cabot, which opted to go with a commercial company, CodeRed, to notify residents via telephone or e-mail of emergencies, Sherwood decided in August to go with a free system provided by the state.
The system, AlertExpress, is operated by the Arkansas Crime Information Center, and available to all law enforcement agencies and they may offer it to local cities or counties as long as they maintain control.
“It can be used to notify city residents of important or emergency information or used by law enforcement agencies internally to stay in contact with other departments such as fire or paramedics or SWAT,” said Rick Stallings, ACIC field services manager.
While CodeRed has the ability to send out storm warnings, the AlertExpress system isn’t geared for that.
“But it is great for missing-children alerts, chemical-spill notification and other important messages,” Sherwood Police Chief Kel Nicholson said.
With provisional approval of the Arkansas Board of Education in August, organizers moved forward crafting a plan to open a charter school at Little Rock Air Force Base by the end of next summer.
State education commissioners voted 4-2 in favor of three amendments of the current charter of Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School, which included opening a satellite school in an existing facility on base.
Mike Ronan, chief executive officer for Lighthouse Academies, Inc., said that the 28,000-square-foot facility, constructed in 2009 to house Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School, was filled to capacity with a waiting list of more than 500 students. Of those, more than 100 are for grades 6 and 7. The school added seventh grade this fall and will add another grade each year until grade 12 is reached.
The base school will house sixth-, seventh- and eighth- graders.
The school would be the first charter school in Arkansas located on a military base.
A thunderstorm that rolled through Pulaski and Lonoke counties Aug. 10 averaged about 100 lightning strikes every four minutes and started at least two house fires.
CS and Z Fire Department responded to a house fire caused by a lightning strike off Poppy Lane, near Kerr Station, just outside Cabot.
South Bend, Ward, Cabot and Tri Community fire departments also sent tankers and firefighters to help battle the fire.
Sherwood firefighters re-sponded to three possible lightning strikes.
The bell schedule, or start time, for PCSSD schools became a major issue in August.
The new schedule would have lengthened the school day by 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. Some students were to get on a bus as early as 6 a.m. with the new schedule.
A few weeks later, the district reversed the schedule, giving elementary students the later start time, while middle- and high-school students’ start times were earlier.
The revised schedule came after parents and teachers opposed the plan.
A Beebe man was charged with capital murder in the death of a Greenbrier woman.
Ronald Adrean Britton, 34, was arrested near El Paso.
Lt. Matt Rice, a detective with the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Department, said a relative found the body of Michelle Asher, 26, in the backyard at 16D Fox Run in Greenbrier, where she lived alone. Her neck and throat had been stabbed several times.
The Museum of American History, at 208 N. 1st St. in Cabot, opened in late August.
The award-winning, student-founded museum, owned by the school district, went into storage in 2003 when the building where it was housed on the high school campus was razed to make way for the new high school. It moved to its current location in 2008. The museum’s collection includes more than 5,000 artifacts, photographs and documents including a large collection from Bill Clinton’s campaign for president.
Jacksonville Towers retirement community won a $1.8 million grant from U.S. Housing and Urban Development to pay for energy-efficient renovations in August. The funds were included in the Recovery Act to help reduce energy costs.
Jacksonville Towers was set to get new air-conditioning units, faucets, toilets, windows and geothermal insulation.
Col. C.K. Hyde in late August turned over command of the 314th Air Education and Training Wing to Col. Mark Czelusta.
Hyde, the commander of the 314th, was choked up at the end of his address to the troops, saying, “Families, your support has made a…big difference to the airmen behind you.”
Hyde left to become deputy director of intelligence, operations and nuclear integration for flying training at Randolph Air Force Base.
Czelusta, a command pilot with more than 3,100 hours at the stick, most recently commanded the 386th Expeditionary Operations Group in Southwest Asia in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. His major achievements include selection as the Fifth Air Force Mobility Tactician of the Year.
He returned to Little Rock Air Force Base, where he commanded the 463 Operations Support Squadron. While in command, that unit won the 2005 and 2006 Air Mobility Command Outstanding Operations Support Squadron of the Year award.
With a balanced budget, about $7 million in reserve and minimal debt, Jacksonville received praise from the accounting firm that completed an independent audit of the city’s 2009 finances.
Gerald Clark, with McAlister and Associates, said that despite challenging times, Jacksonville was in good condition and the audit found no major problems. The city had been honored 12 years in a row for its accurate financial reporting.
Highlights of the 138-page report show that the city’s assets exceed its liabilities by almost $53 million even though the city saw a rise in unemployment and a drop in tax collections in 2009.
The Cabot Water and Wastewater Commission voted to accept several acres of Jacksonville’s water district into Cabot’s water district.
The 36-acre tract was south of Cabot. The owner of the property intended to annex into Cabot and wanted Cabot water.
The Jacksonville Water Commission had released the area to Cabot.
September
Two new cannons were dedicated at Reed’s Bridge Civil War battlefield site on Hwy. 161 in Jacksonville. The replica cannons are located on opposite sides of the Bayou Meto. The cannons were made in Virginia.
About a week later, the battlefield was the site of a re-enactment event.
The two-day event commemorated the fight on Aug. 27, 1863, between Union and Confederate soldiers 147 years ago.
Soldiers held drills before the battle; there was even a Civil War style wedding.
More than a thousand people attended.
n Pulaski County School Board member Gwen Williams was accused in September of taking a bribe from a sidewalk contractor, but the contractor couldn’t be found.
There were doubts about the existence of Ricky Weathers, the contractor who made the bribery accusation and delivered the evidence to school board members and the media.
Investigators wondered why the alleged accuser didn’t go to them first.
“The objective was not to have an independent investigation but to generate buzz in the press,” one prosecutor said.
All board members, except Williams, received a letter and two recordings that apparently show Williams taking a $100 bribe.
The allegation came in the wake of a May 14 Legislative Audit Division report that stated the district overpaid its superintendent, improperly re-imbursed Williams and other board members for expenses and failed to catch the theft of nearly $500,000 in equipment. The auditors also questioned overtime payments in the district’s maintenance department and raised an allegation of misappropriated activity funds at Jacksonville High School.
Arkansas was one of only four states in the nation not facing budget shortfalls for the fiscal calendar year, Gov. Mike Beebe told Sherwood Chamber of Commerce members Thursday in a de facto campaign speech.
Without mentioning or alluding to his November general-election challenge from Republican Jim Keet, the governor’s accent on good things happening in the state and the occasional use of the first-person singular, taking some credit, were clues that it was an election season.
Also, a recent education study found the state in the top 10 for improvements, he said.
“We’ve done our job,” Beebe told the chamber members. “Don’t quit now. Get back to work.”
He said no generation had been in a better position to change the national view of Arkansas as a poor back-woods state.
“It’s not, ‘Thank God for Mississippi’ anymore,” he said. “We’re finally taking the position where we need to be in the front of the pack.”
“We’ve got a deceased gentleman behind the building,” Jacksonville Police Capt. Kenny Boyd said in early September.
The body of a black male, later identified as Daniel Harris, 23, had been beaten. It is the city’s only murder of the year.
About a week later, police arrested Alonzo Watson, 20, and charged him with second-degree murder.
A committee of five aldermen and five county residents worked together to make the annexation of 3.8 square miles north of Jacksonville into the city a smooth transaction–provided it passed in the Nov. 2 general election, which it didn’t.
Because the city was trying to take in the land, the state required an election. City residents and those living in the affected areas may vote. Many residents in the northern section made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the city.
Those concerns led to the formation of a citizen’s committee by the council to review concerns, work out compromises and have ordinances in place before the election that allow the residents of the affected area to maintain their rural lifestyle.
Jacksonville reaped more than $4.6 million in federal and state grants, and most didn’t ask the city to chip in any funding.
Some had already been awarded, while others were being processed, Jim Durham, the director of administration told the city council in September. He said, “Once we start writing them and getting them we want to write more grants and get even more money.”
The largest grant already awarded is $496,657 for the city to build a safe room at the new police and fire training facility on Marshall Road.
The largest grant was $1.5 million for economic development of the Wooten Road area. This will be used to purchase and develop properties off Hwy. 161 near I-440 where the city would like the state fair to relocate.
For the second year in a row, Arnold Drive Elementary was named one of the top 20 schools in the state by the University of Arkansas.
It was the only school from Pulaski County Special School District to make the list.
Cabot had two schools on the top-20 list of elementary schools and Searcy had two on the middle school list.
Arnold Drive, which is listed eighth on this year’s top-20 list actually finished in a six-way tie for third place with 95 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced in both the 2009-2010 math and literacy Benchmarks scores.
Cabot had two elementary schools in the top 20, Magness Creek Elementary, which was also on the list the year before, and Stagecoach Elementary.
Magness Creek was listed as 17th on the list, but was actually in a three-way tie for fifth best as 93 percent of its students were proficient or advanced on both math and literacy exams.
Stagecoach, with 92 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced, made the list for the first time at number 20, but was actually in a two-way tie for sixth.
Once again, Pulaski County Special School District’s eighth-day enrollment count declined, although not as dramatically as in some previous years. And once again, Cabot school enrollment increased, topping 10,300.
This year’s total in PCSSD was 16,792 students, down from 16,915 in 2009. That’s a loss of 123 students.
Cabot’s enrollment had been on the rise since school started. It was 9,904 on the first day and 10,069 a few days later.
Beebe’s enrollment of 3,310 is essentially the same as in 2009.
A new southbound exit ramp at the Hwy. 5 interchange in Cabot opened about three weeks ahead of schedule.
It was built, said Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman, “in half the time and for half the money.”
The original cost estimate was about $1 million but the actual cost was $414,046 not counting the $60,000 the county paid Larry Odom for the 1.59 acres where it was built.
“Maybe it will save some lives and I certainly hope it will,” Troutman said.
“The most dangerous intersection in Lonoke County has been made safer,” Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams said.
The state Legislative Audit Committee had another showdown with the PCSSD school board and warned the board to straighten out its finances.
More checks and balances were established by Superintendent Charles Hopson to eliminate improper reimbursements to board members and others. School board member Bill Vasquez of Jacksonville said the audit committee was exaggerating problems in the district, which prompted Sen. Bobby Glover (D-Carlisle), the committee chairman, to say, “I don’t appreciate your criticizing the Legislative Audit Committee for doing its job. We’ll continue to call you in and stay on top of it.”
The committee threatened to subpoena board members who didn’t attend after being instructed to do so.
“I don’t think they have their act together,” said Sen. John Paul Capps (D-Searcy).
Arnold Drive Elementary School was one of just four Arkansas schools designated Sept. 9 as a Blue Ribbon School by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
The announcement came hot on the heels of the announcement by the University of Arkansas that Arnold Drive was the third-highest achieving elementary school in the state.
“We’re in third place including charter and magnet schools,” Principal Julie Davenport said of the recognition by the University of Arkansas. “We have some very strong teachers who have been here quite a long time, and some new.”
Nationally, 304 schools received the designation as 2010 Blue Ribbon Schools for academic achievement. The four in Arkansas all were elementary schools, and only Arnold Drive was in central Arkansas.
Two of the three Jack-sonville-area PCSSD school board members led a fight in September to prevent the Jacksonville Education Foundation from resuming talks with Pulaski County Special School District officials aimed at paving the way for formation of 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. The case has 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, 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 Williams, the other Jacksonville-area board member, also voted against reopening discussions.
Vasquez said only 20 percent of the people of Jacksonville really want their own district and the rest just want “clean, safe, good schools.”
A 72-year-old teacher’s aide from Cabot Junior High South was charged with third-degree assault for slapping a 13-year-old special-education student.
The arrest report for Hubert D. Bugher said a tape of the incident showed Bugher backhanding the boy across the mouth. The report said the boy told the school-resource officer that he was complaining about doing his work and Bugher told him to “Shut up.” The boy replied, “Your momma” and Bugher struck him.
The incident took place in the hallway. The boy had no noticeable injury and stayed in school for the day. After principal Scott Jennings turned the matter over to the school-resource officer, Bugher turned in his resignation and left.
Bugher turned himself in to police on Sept. 15.
He has since pleaded guilty and agreed to attend anger-management classes.
As the cost of Pulaski County’s 20-year-old desegregation agreement neared $1 billion, a group of frustrated Jacksonville residents petitioned state Education Department Director Tom Kimbrell in September to reorganize the county’s schools, create an independent Jacksonville-north Pulaski County school district or do something.
The two-page letter to Kimbrell and members of the state board of education said a state of emergency exists and “your assistance will be appreciated,” but it stopped short of asking the board to take over the Pulaski County Special School District or to create a new, standalone district. It did not ask any specific remedy.
The letter, supported by several documents and a half-inch-thick stack of petitions with about 2,000 signatures favoring a standalone district, asked Kimbrell and the board of education to do something, according to state Rep. Mark Perry, who said he hand delivered the bound petition to Kimbrell’s office, and that copies also were mailed to the nine-member state board of education.
Cabot School Board approved a $69.3 million operating budget for the 2010-2011 school year, up from $67.4 million last year.
The budget included an anticipated carryover of $6.1 million to start the 2011-2012 school year. Tina Wiley, district comptroller, said the carryover was important because the first money from the state doesn’t come in until the end of August and the district needed money for salaries and other expenses until then.
The budget did not yet include salary increases although Dr. Tony Thurman, school superintendent, said those are coming.
Wiley said for the past two years, the district has given pay raises that added $1,000 to the base pay of all teachers. Classified staff such as custodians and cafeteria workers received pay increases of 30 cents an hour for an overall increase of $378 to $600 depending upon hours worked.
The eight-page budget the board passed was not broken down to show expenditures such as individual salaries.
Gloria Lawrence of Sher-wood and Tom Stuthard of Jacksonville, both supported by the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers and the Pulaski Association of Support Staff, replaced incumbent union supporters Charlie Wood and Danny Gililland in PCSSD school board elections.
Both Lawrence and Stuthard said they were very clear about their roles as policy makers, said Superintendent Charles Hopson.
“Both were very supportive of the direction we’re taking the district,” he added, and “have a very positive reaction toward the appointments I’ve made.”
The system, AlertExpress, is operated by the Arkansas Crime Information Center, and available to all law enforcement agencies and they may offer it to local cities or counties as long as they maintain control.
“It can be used to notify city residents of important or emergency information or used by law enforcement agencies internally to stay in contact with other departments such as fire or paramedics or SWAT,” said Rick Stallings, ACIC field services manager.
While CodeRed has the ability to send out storm warnings, the AlertExpress system isn’t geared for that.
“But it is great for missing-children alerts, chemical-spill notification and other important messages,” Sherwood Police Chief Kel Nicholson said.
With provisional approval of the Arkansas Board of Education in August, organizers moved forward crafting a plan to open a charter school at Little Rock Air Force Base by the end of next summer.
State education commissioners voted 4-2 in favor of three amendments of the current charter of Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School, which included opening a satellite school in an existing facility on base.
Mike Ronan, chief executive officer for Lighthouse Academies, Inc., said that the 28,000-square-foot facility, constructed in 2009 to house Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School, was filled to capacity with a waiting list of more than 500 students. Of those, more than 100 are for grades 6 and 7. The school added seventh grade this fall and will add another grade each year until grade 12 is reached.
The base school will house sixth-, seventh- and eighth- graders.
The school would be the first charter school in Arkansas located on a military base.
A thunderstorm that rolled through Pulaski and Lonoke counties Aug. 10 averaged about 100 lightning strikes every four minutes and started at least two house fires.
CS and Z Fire Department responded to a house fire caused by a lightning strike off Poppy Lane, near Kerr Station, just outside Cabot.
South Bend, Ward, Cabot and Tri Community fire departments also sent tankers and firefighters to help battle the fire.
Sherwood firefighters re-sponded to three possible lightning strikes.
The bell schedule, or start time, for PCSSD schools became a major issue in August.
The new schedule would have lengthened the school day by 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon. Some students were to get on a bus as early as 6 a.m. with the new schedule.
A few weeks later, the district reversed the schedule, giving elementary students the later start time, while middle- and high-school students’ start times were earlier.
The revised schedule came after parents and teachers opposed the plan.
A Beebe man was charged with capital murder in the death of a Greenbrier woman.
Ronald Adrean Britton, 34, was arrested near El Paso.
Lt. Matt Rice, a detective with the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Department, said a relative found the body of Michelle Asher, 26, in the backyard at 16D Fox Run in Greenbrier, where she lived alone. Her neck and throat had been stabbed several times.
The Museum of American History, at 208 N. 1st St. in Cabot, opened in late August.
The award-winning, student-founded museum, owned by the school district, went into storage in 2003 when the building where it was housed on the high school campus was razed to make way for the new high school. It moved to its current location in 2008. The museum’s collection includes more than 5,000 artifacts, photographs and documents including a large collection from Bill Clinton’s campaign for president.
Jacksonville Towers retirement community won a $1.8 million grant from U.S. Housing and Urban Development to pay for energy-efficient renovations in August. The funds were included in the Recovery Act to help reduce energy costs.
Jacksonville Towers was set to get new air-conditioning units, faucets, toilets, windows and geothermal insulation.
Col. C.K. Hyde in late August turned over command of the 314th Air Education and Training Wing to Col. Mark Czelusta.
Hyde, the commander of the 314th, was choked up at the end of his address to the troops, saying, “Families, your support has made a…big difference to the airmen behind you.”
Hyde left to become deputy director of intelligence, operations and nuclear integration for flying training at Randolph Air Force Base.
Czelusta, a command pilot with more than 3,100 hours at the stick, most recently commanded the 386th Expeditionary Operations Group in Southwest Asia in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. His major achievements include selection as the Fifth Air Force Mobility Tactician of the Year.
He returned to Little Rock Air Force Base, where he commanded the 463 Operations Support Squadron. While in command, that unit won the 2005 and 2006 Air Mobility Command Outstanding Operations Support Squadron of the Year award.
With a balanced budget, about $7 million in reserve and minimal debt, Jacksonville received praise from the accounting firm that completed an independent audit of the city’s 2009 finances.
Gerald Clark, with McAlister and Associates, said that despite challenging times, Jacksonville was in good condition and the audit found no major problems. The city had been honored 12 years in a row for its accurate financial reporting.
Highlights of the 138-page report show that the city’s assets exceed its liabilities by almost $53 million even though the city saw a rise in unemployment and a drop in tax collections in 2009.
The Cabot Water and Wastewater Commission voted to accept several acres of Jacksonville’s water district into Cabot’s water district.
The 36-acre tract was south of Cabot. The owner of the property intended to annex into Cabot and wanted Cabot water.
The Jacksonville Water Commission had released the area to Cabot.
September
Two new cannons were dedicated at Reed’s Bridge Civil War battlefield site on Hwy. 161 in Jacksonville. The replica cannons are located on opposite sides of the Bayou Meto. The cannons were made in Virginia.
About a week later, the battlefield was the site of a re-enactment event.
The two-day event commemorated the fight on Aug. 27, 1863, between Union and Confederate soldiers 147 years ago.
Soldiers held drills before the battle; there was even a Civil War style wedding.
More than a thousand people attended.
n Pulaski County School Board member Gwen Williams was accused in September of taking a bribe from a sidewalk contractor, but the contractor couldn’t be found.
There were doubts about the existence of Ricky Weathers, the contractor who made the bribery accusation and delivered the evidence to school board members and the media.
Investigators wondered why the alleged accuser didn’t go to them first.
“The objective was not to have an independent investigation but to generate buzz in the press,” one prosecutor said.
All board members, except Williams, received a letter and two recordings that apparently show Williams taking a $100 bribe.
The allegation came in the wake of a May 14 Legislative Audit Division report that stated the district overpaid its superintendent, improperly re-imbursed Williams and other board members for expenses and failed to catch the theft of nearly $500,000 in equipment. The auditors also questioned overtime payments in the district’s maintenance department and raised an allegation of misappropriated activity funds at Jacksonville High School.
Arkansas was one of only four states in the nation not facing budget shortfalls for the fiscal calendar year, Gov. Mike Beebe told Sherwood Chamber of Commerce members Thursday in a de facto campaign speech.
Without mentioning or alluding to his November general-election challenge from Republican Jim Keet, the governor’s accent on good things happening in the state and the occasional use of the first-person singular, taking some credit, were clues that it was an election season.
Also, a recent education study found the state in the top 10 for improvements, he said.
“We’ve done our job,” Beebe told the chamber members. “Don’t quit now. Get back to work.”
He said no generation had been in a better position to change the national view of Arkansas as a poor back-woods state.
“It’s not, ‘Thank God for Mississippi’ anymore,” he said. “We’re finally taking the position where we need to be in the front of the pack.”
“We’ve got a deceased gentleman behind the building,” Jacksonville Police Capt. Kenny Boyd said in early September.
The body of a black male, later identified as Daniel Harris, 23, had been beaten. It is the city’s only murder of the year.
About a week later, police arrested Alonzo Watson, 20, and charged him with second-degree murder.
A committee of five aldermen and five county residents worked together to make the annexation of 3.8 square miles north of Jacksonville into the city a smooth transaction–provided it passed in the Nov. 2 general election, which it didn’t.
Because the city was trying to take in the land, the state required an election. City residents and those living in the affected areas may vote. Many residents in the northern section made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the city.
Those concerns led to the formation of a citizen’s committee by the council to review concerns, work out compromises and have ordinances in place before the election that allow the residents of the affected area to maintain their rural lifestyle.
Jacksonville reaped more than $4.6 million in federal and state grants, and most didn’t ask the city to chip in any funding.
Some had already been awarded, while others were being processed, Jim Durham, the director of administration told the city council in September. He said, “Once we start writing them and getting them we want to write more grants and get even more money.”
The largest grant already awarded is $496,657 for the city to build a safe room at the new police and fire training facility on Marshall Road.
The largest grant was $1.5 million for economic development of the Wooten Road area. This will be used to purchase and develop properties off Hwy. 161 near I-440 where the city would like the state fair to relocate.
For the second year in a row, Arnold Drive Elementary was named one of the top 20 schools in the state by the University of Arkansas.
It was the only school from Pulaski County Special School District to make the list.
Cabot had two schools on the top-20 list of elementary schools and Searcy had two on the middle school list.
Arnold Drive, which is listed eighth on this year’s top-20 list actually finished in a six-way tie for third place with 95 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced in both the 2009-2010 math and literacy Benchmarks scores.
Cabot had two elementary schools in the top 20, Magness Creek Elementary, which was also on the list the year before, and Stagecoach Elementary.
Magness Creek was listed as 17th on the list, but was actually in a three-way tie for fifth best as 93 percent of its students were proficient or advanced on both math and literacy exams.
Stagecoach, with 92 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced, made the list for the first time at number 20, but was actually in a two-way tie for sixth.
Once again, Pulaski County Special School District’s eighth-day enrollment count declined, although not as dramatically as in some previous years. And once again, Cabot school enrollment increased, topping 10,300.
This year’s total in PCSSD was 16,792 students, down from 16,915 in 2009. That’s a loss of 123 students.
Cabot’s enrollment had been on the rise since school started. It was 9,904 on the first day and 10,069 a few days later.
Beebe’s enrollment of 3,310 is essentially the same as in 2009.
A new southbound exit ramp at the Hwy. 5 interchange in Cabot opened about three weeks ahead of schedule.
It was built, said Lonoke County Judge Charlie Troutman, “in half the time and for half the money.”
The original cost estimate was about $1 million but the actual cost was $414,046 not counting the $60,000 the county paid Larry Odom for the 1.59 acres where it was built.
“Maybe it will save some lives and I certainly hope it will,” Troutman said.
“The most dangerous intersection in Lonoke County has been made safer,” Cabot Mayor Eddie Joe Williams said.
The state Legislative Audit Committee had another showdown with the PCSSD school board and warned the board to straighten out its finances.
More checks and balances were established by Superintendent Charles Hopson to eliminate improper reimbursements to board members and others. School board member Bill Vasquez of Jacksonville said the audit committee was exaggerating problems in the district, which prompted Sen. Bobby Glover (D-Carlisle), the committee chairman, to say, “I don’t appreciate your criticizing the Legislative Audit Committee for doing its job. We’ll continue to call you in and stay on top of it.”
The committee threatened to subpoena board members who didn’t attend after being instructed to do so.
“I don’t think they have their act together,” said Sen. John Paul Capps (D-Searcy).
Arnold Drive Elementary School was one of just four Arkansas schools designated Sept. 9 as a Blue Ribbon School by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
The announcement came hot on the heels of the announcement by the University of Arkansas that Arnold Drive was the third-highest achieving elementary school in the state.
“We’re in third place including charter and magnet schools,” Principal Julie Davenport said of the recognition by the University of Arkansas. “We have some very strong teachers who have been here quite a long time, and some new.”
Nationally, 304 schools received the designation as 2010 Blue Ribbon Schools for academic achievement. The four in Arkansas all were elementary schools, and only Arnold Drive was in central Arkansas.
Two of the three Jack-sonville-area PCSSD school board members led a fight in September to prevent the Jacksonville Education Foundation from resuming talks with Pulaski County Special School District officials aimed at paving the way for formation of 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. The case has 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, 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 Williams, the other Jacksonville-area board member, also voted against reopening discussions.
Vasquez said only 20 percent of the people of Jacksonville really want their own district and the rest just want “clean, safe, good schools.”
A 72-year-old teacher’s aide from Cabot Junior High South was charged with third-degree assault for slapping a 13-year-old special-education student.
The arrest report for Hubert D. Bugher said a tape of the incident showed Bugher backhanding the boy across the mouth. The report said the boy told the school-resource officer that he was complaining about doing his work and Bugher told him to “Shut up.” The boy replied, “Your momma” and Bugher struck him.
The incident took place in the hallway. The boy had no noticeable injury and stayed in school for the day. After principal Scott Jennings turned the matter over to the school-resource officer, Bugher turned in his resignation and left.
Bugher turned himself in to police on Sept. 15.
He has since pleaded guilty and agreed to attend anger-management classes.
As the cost of Pulaski County’s 20-year-old desegregation agreement neared $1 billion, a group of frustrated Jacksonville residents petitioned state Education Department Director Tom Kimbrell in September to reorganize the county’s schools, create an independent Jacksonville-north Pulaski County school district or do something.
The two-page letter to Kimbrell and members of the state board of education said a state of emergency exists and “your assistance will be appreciated,” but it stopped short of asking the board to take over the Pulaski County Special School District or to create a new, standalone district. It did not ask any specific remedy.
The letter, supported by several documents and a half-inch-thick stack of petitions with about 2,000 signatures favoring a standalone district, asked Kimbrell and the board of education to do something, according to state Rep. Mark Perry, who said he hand delivered the bound petition to Kimbrell’s office, and that copies also were mailed to the nine-member state board of education.
Cabot School Board approved a $69.3 million operating budget for the 2010-2011 school year, up from $67.4 million last year.
The budget included an anticipated carryover of $6.1 million to start the 2011-2012 school year. Tina Wiley, district comptroller, said the carryover was important because the first money from the state doesn’t come in until the end of August and the district needed money for salaries and other expenses until then.
The budget did not yet include salary increases although Dr. Tony Thurman, school superintendent, said those are coming.
Wiley said for the past two years, the district has given pay raises that added $1,000 to the base pay of all teachers. Classified staff such as custodians and cafeteria workers received pay increases of 30 cents an hour for an overall increase of $378 to $600 depending upon hours worked.
The eight-page budget the board passed was not broken down to show expenditures such as individual salaries.
Gloria Lawrence of Sher-wood and Tom Stuthard of Jacksonville, both supported by the Pulaski Association of Classroom Teachers and the Pulaski Association of Support Staff, replaced incumbent union supporters Charlie Wood and Danny Gililland in PCSSD school board elections.
Both Lawrence and Stuthard said they were very clear about their roles as policy makers, said Superintendent Charles Hopson.
“Both were very supportive of the direction we’re taking the district,” he added, and “have a very positive reaction toward the appointments I’ve made.”
