The Little Rock School District Board voted Thursday to replace its mask mandate with a new framework that’s based on CDC guidelines.

The meeting began with public comment on the masking policy. There were 68 written comments and three public speakers. Veronica McClane asked a series of questions about the goals of the district’s masking policy. She encouraged the board to look at data beyond the CDC and reminded the board that children under 5 are still not able to get vaccinated. Superintendent Mike Poore summarized the emails. Fifty-six people wrote emails opposed to masks. Seven wanted to keep masks. And five wanted to follow CDC rules.

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The board then went into an executive session to hire a new principal at Carver STEAM Academy. Carver and Booker Elementary schools will be combined into this new school.  Arkansas’s Freedom of Information Act allows public boards to only go into executive session for personnel matters. A motion was made to select Clifton Woodley as the principal of the new Carver STEAM Academy.

Next was the special meeting on the mask mandate. Our democratically elected school board listened to the majority of our city and tied our mask policy to the CDC and Arkansas Department of Health data and opinions. This is a good thing. As the CDC made changes to their recommendations, our board has adapted also.

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Poore began the conversation by pointing out that LRSD has had a multi-pronged attack on this virus. We have implemented a mandatory mask policy, we have 85% of our staff vaccinated, we have worked on air purifying, and we have had a liberal leave policy. This has all had a positive impact on our schools and our community.

The administration asked the board to make three changes.

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They proposed changing the mask mandate to a sliding scale based on community COVID-19 levels, hospital beds in use, and ICU beds in use. This data is collected and then reported by the CDC. This will create a tiered system based on the CDC weekly report.  Each Thursday the CDC will rate Pulaski County on a color scale:

Low (Green): Mask Optional
Medium (Yellow): Mask Strongly Recommend
High (Orange): Masks required indoors

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Then the weekly mask requirement will be updated on the LRSD website each Friday.

The LRSD administration also recommended suspending contract tracing and quarantining. The CDC no longer recommends universal contract tracing.

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Next followed the board discussion of these motions.

Ali Noland asked if there were separate recommendations for kids under 5 since they cannot be vaccinated. The district nurse said no.

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Norma Johnson asked what color the city fell under Thursday. It was yellow.

Vicki Hatter said she was concerned that changing the mask instructions each week might be confusing to some parents.

Johnson asked if we had masks on the buses and at the schools for students if a parent missed the announcement. The district answered yes.

Evelyn Calloway said she was sick of the masks but believes masks worked. She was concerned that our numbers will go up with new variants. She believes this plan is good and will help.

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Jeff Wood had a number of questions. He was frustrated with the CDC’s plan. He asked a series of technical questions about how the CDC is processing data.

Noland had a question on contact tracing and quarantining. She wanted to know if we should tie these to the color coding from CDC. The answer was this plan is more flexible and at any time the administration can start these if they feel the situation warrants it.  

There was a single motion for all of these items. Wood made a motion to approve all the recommendations. The second was made by Johnson. The vote was 6-2. Hatter and Sandrekkia Morning voted no.

Wood moved to make masks optional beginning Friday, March 11. It was seconded by Hatter. The administration had no problem with this.  The vote was 5-3.  The motion initially failed but Callaway changed her vote and it passed.

The next motion was to open the board meetings to the public. Wood made the motion to open them. This was seconded by Leigh Anne Wilson. The vote was 7-1. Johnson was the no vote. The next board meetings are next week.

After these votes, the board entered it agenda meeting and heard a number of reports.

The first report was on a memorandum of understanding between the city of Little Rock and the Little Rock School District. While asserting that this MOU was not creating a new administrative entity, it does create a six-member board called the LRSD Community School Oversight Board. Under Article 1 Section 5 Subsection f, the MOU appears to suggest that the Oversight Board will provide reports to the LRSD Board on annually approved budgets, on any new services, or employees funded for community schools. This appears to call on the full nine-member LRSD board to give up control over budgets, services and employees in these select schools. This seems like a slippery slope, and appears to me to violate board policy that gives our full board these powers.

Hopefully the MOU can be amended to clarify that our school board will vote on all matters related to our schools. I’m not actually sure why we even need this oversight board. We are also committing $475,000 per year to this program. If we are going to commit this money, it strikes me that our board demand this be a true community school program that gets participation from the community. Right now, these are city-funded schools, which is a good thing. Mayor Frank Scott Jr. is the first Little Rock mayor in my memory who has taken an interest in the Little Rock School District and committed city revenue to the schools. He should be praised for his concern, plans and help.  

Noland wanted clarity to make sure the LRSD School Board is in control of the schools. I think this language must be added to the MOU. Hatter shared the same concerns and added that we don’t want to create schools that are unequal across our district.  

Poore made it clear the district and the city want to make changes that will make this document clearer. Callaway wanted a report on what has been done in these schools. Poore said that is coming later.

The second report was on the City Year contract. City Year is a national organization that provides services to some of our schools. I’m not sure they are moving the needle a lot on the academic side. They do provide tutoring, but their main strength is in providing love and care for kids. This is a good thing. Our kids need help and they need to feel that someone is on their side. The teachers cannot do this alone, and this is a good group to help with this task.

The third report was on the Pfeifer Camp AmeriCorps Program. This group provides an academic and behavior program called Alternative Classroom Experience that serves up to 88 LRSD third, fourth and fifth grade students who were not performing well in the traditional classroom. They use a series of behavioral programs to help kids adjust to the traditional classroom, the real world and they provide one on one tutoring for these kids.

The fourth report was on extending the East Lab program to Mabelvale, Stephens and Washington Elementary schools. EAST stands for Environmental and Spatial Technology and is an initiative to provide a curriculum that stresses project-based learning.

The board will be asked to approve this expansion next board meeting. This is a dual project with the city, so this expansion will also need the city board’s approval.

The fifth report was on the Elementary Summer Enrichment Academy. Summer school will be 20 days this summer. There will be aftercare. There will be school at Bale, Forrest Heights, Fulbright, King and Wakefield. There will also be a GT Academy for one week and there will be an English Learner camp for 20 days. These are good programs that help the neediest kids in our city. At the secondary level there will be enrichment programs at many campuses.

The seventh report was on a plan to rename the Dunbar Middle School auditorium after Florence Beatrice Price.  Price grew up in the Dunbar Historic Neighborhood. She was a world-famous symphonic composer. She performed a benefit concert at Dunbar on February 19, 1935.

 The board will be asked to vote on this at the next meeting.

The fifth report was on the Level 4 Exit report, third quarter report. The district is still under state supervision and we have to meet certain markers to be released from this oversight. The state does not have any control over our board, but we agreed to report to them on progress on the PLC process, implementation of teacher assessment programs, the reading curriculum, our budget and our master facility plan. The PLC program is the Professional Learning Community that each school is supposed to be implementing. This is where teachers work together to analyze data and adapt to the individual learning needs of kids.

The final reports were the financial reports.  Our board will be asked to approve an architect for the Dunbar renovations, a construction manager for the Central High School renovations and a construction manager for West Little Rock High School.

Finally, the board approved their agenda for next week’s regular board meeting.

The next meeting of our school board will be open to the public. There is a special meeting Wednesday, March 16, with the superintendent search firm.  Then the regular school board meeting will be held on Thursday, March 17.