Garland Yates of Mobilizing Communities, and consultant for Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, enjoyed a recent visit to Leslie along with RCA staff. Garland was able to visit with Revitalization Project Leader Talitha Hardin and Arts & Heritage Focus Group Leader Adrienne LaFargue as well as some of the business owners in Leslie.
Garland Yates visits with local leaders
Rural Community Alliance is excited to begin work with the youth in several of our rural communities across the state!
Youth Empowerment Networks (YEN) will be doing service projects that benefit their schools and communities. Starter grants of $500 will be made available to the groups to help get them started. The YEN’s are also encouraged to ask community businesses and individuals to “match funds” to help provide even more opportunities for service projects within their community.
Our desire for the YEN program is to provide the youth with a way to actively serve their schools and communities.
We believe that through involvement with the YEN, students will:
We’re very proud of the youth that have already committed to the program. Our first YEN was formed in the Greater Lead Hill area. They’re doing a great job, and we know there are great things to come from these youth and their desire to serve the community! Within just a matter of weeks, the youth had already secured a personal donation and a “matching” donation from the local Arvest Bank. (Way to go girls!)
We plan to have 7 YEN’s in various parts of the state before the end of 2010.
Check back soon for more news on these wonderful young people!
Eudora beautification group provided landscaping at the local library and are now enjoying great color from their efforts.
Flowers at Eudora Library
Laurie Gross offloads merchandise for her store, Old Mercantile Antiques on Main Street. In the background, the sign and building of a new business is visible, John K. Carr Realty.
L-R: Danny Eckert, Dorothy Singleton, Renee Carr, Juanita Burton, Rather Clark
Valuable training including Public Narrative was provided by the C.S. Mott Foundation near Chicago. Several Rural Community Alliance members and staff attended at the invitation of Intermediary Sponsoring Organization, Southern Echo.
Dorothy Singleton and Juanita Burton visit with Leroy Johnson of Southern Echo
Fourche Valley has won the right to have their case heard by the Arkansas Supreme Court which is a victory in itself. Fourche Valley supporter Lucinda Buford reports that oral arguments are set for May 27 at 9:00 a.m. Each side will have 20 minutes to argue their case. The Arkansas Supreme Court is located at 625 Marshall Street, near I-630 in downtown Little Rock. Fourche Valley will plead the case of students who are now riding the bus up to 3 hours per day after their school was closed last year by majority vote of the Two Rivers local board and the State Board of Education. Fourche Valley, an isolated school in west-central Arkansas, was consolidated into the Two Rivers District in 2004 following the enactment of Act 60. With only one board member on the resulting board, Fourche Valley was no longer locally controlled. The community has always been very supportive of the school, having raised local contributions for building expansions in recent years.
Twin Rivers in north Arkansas has filed a lawsuit against the State Board of Education seeking a preliminary injunction to keep the school property from being sold before their case can be heard. The State Board of Education is charting new territory with this being the first school in Arkansas closed due to “accreditation violations” leading one to ask the question will schools of all sizes be subject to the same scrutiny and subsequent closure when this occurs? Or are small and rural schools the primary target? An accreditation violation generally is due to the oversight of school authorities who have not fulfilled their obligations. Twin Rivers’ superintendent admitted he was to blame and resigned, but the State did not give the school a chance to move forward under new leadership. The State Board has also decided to “starburst” the district, sending Twin Rivers students to six different districts. Twin Rivers is an isolated district with campuses at Williford and Ravenden Springs.
These local efforts to bring justice and fairness to small schools do not come free. Fourche Valley and Twin Rivers communities have formed non-profit organizations to wage the battle and have solicited local donations. They hope to prevail for their small schools but are also doing this to help all small schools in Arkansas who eventually may find themselves in the cross-hairs of big guns. Any contributions you can give these organizations will be appreciated. Please email carr@thenewrural.org if you would like contact information for the two non-profit organizations. See newspaper article below reprinted with permission of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
| Publication:Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; | Date:May 14, 2010; | Section:Arkansas; | Page Number:11 |
Parents sue state to keep schools open
They say board lacks power to end Twin Rivers district
JOHN KRUPA ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
A group of parents from rural north Arkansas has filed a lawsuit asking the court to void an Arkansas Board of Education vote to dissolve the Twin Rivers School District and close its schools.
The nonprofit “Save the Twin Rivers Schools” filed a complaint late Wednesday in Pulaski County Circuit Court asking for a preliminary injunction and declaratory judgment.
The lawsuit comes after another parent group sued the board last year over another vote to close a rural school — that time the Fourche Valley school in Yell County in west Arkansas. The Fourche Valley case is set for oral arguments before the Arkansas Supreme Court on May 27.
The state board voted unanimously Monday to close the two schools in Twin Rivers, divide up the district’s territory and partition it out to six neighboring districts.
The closure, set to go into effect July 1, was because of accreditation violations — the first time the state ever closed a school district for that reason.
The complaint argues that the state board lacked the authority to close Twin Rivers’ two schools in Williford and Ravenden Springs because each school is afforded special protection under state law as geographically “isolated schools.”
Twin Rivers was created in 2004 after the Williford and Randolph County school districts were forced to consolidate for having enrollments below 350 students.
Act 60 of 2003 of the Second Extraordinary Session gave special protection to isolated schools created within consolidated districts like Twin Rivers, the complaint argues.
Arkansas Code Annotated 6-20-602(b) reads, “Any isolated school within a resulting or receiving district shall remain open.”
The law goes on to say that an isolated school may be closed only by a unanimous vote of the local school board.
If only a majority of the local board members vote to close the school, the decision must then be ratified by vote of the state board.
In Twin Rivers’ case, the local board never voted to break up the school district. Instead — because of the academic problems — the state board dissolved the local board and took control over Twin Rivers in February.
It then voted to close the Twin Rivers schools on its own accord Monday.
That was illegal, the complaint argues.
“The state board is not authorized to require the closure of an isolated school or any parts thereof without a motion from the local board of directors,” reads Arkansas Code Annotated 6-20-602(b)(2)(D).
“It’s like the state board voting to close the University of Arkansas,” attorney Clay Fendley said Thursday. “They wouldn’t have the authority, so that action would be void.”
Jeremy Lasiter, an Education Department attorney, referred a call for comment to department spokesman Julie Johnson Thompson.
Thompson said Thursday that the department doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
“We feel the state board’s actions have been both legal and appropriate,” Thompson said.
Lasiter argued at the state board hearing Monday that state law does not prohibit the board from closing Twin Rivers’ schools.
In fact, Arkansas Code Annotated 6-15-207 requires the state board to act against schools that fail to meet their standards of accreditation, Lasiter said.
The potential actions include closing individual schools and annexing a school district into neighboring ones, according to the law.
Lasiter said Monday that any court would read the two conflicting laws together and rule in favor of the state.
He said Fendley’s reasoning would mean the state board could never close a geographically isolated school for failing to meet standards of accreditation without the local board’s support.
“Courts would not apply the law in a way that would defy common sense,” Lasiter said Monday.
Fendley said Thursday that the law prohibiting the closure of an isolated school should govern because it’s more specific and more recent.
Fendley said he hopes for a hearing on the request for an injunction next week. He said the matter is urgent because the state is trying to sell the two school buildings.
Twin Rivers is spread across parts of Sharp and Randolph counties near the Missouri border.
Its territory and students will be divided among the neighboring Hillcrest, Pocahontas, Maynard, Sloan-Hendrix, Highland and Mammoth Spring school districts.
Twin Rivers was first cited for accreditation violations and put on probation more than two years ago.
The high school was not teaching the 38 core courses required annually, teachers were teaching outside their subject areas without the proper licensure and the district did not have a professional development plan for its employees.
The district’s school-year calendar also did not list 178 school days as required by law — one calendar showed 174 days and another showed 177 days.
State officials said the problems had put the graduation of three students at risk.
The state board originally voted in February to take over administrative control of the district, appointing an interim superintendent.
At that meeting, former Twin Rivers Superintendent David Gilliland said he accepted responsibility for the district’s problems.
School Board President Charles Tyler later said Gilliland hid Twin Rivers’ problems from the School Board. Most people didn’t find out about the problems until the past few months.
Tony Lowe, chairman of the nonprofit group filing the lawsuit and a Twin Rivers parent, said Thursday that the community was suffering because of the failure of the school district’s former administration.
Lowe said all the accreditation violations have since been corrected. He said the state board should have given the Twin Rivers community a chance to bring in new leadership to run the school district permanently.
Instead, Lowe said, the state board is pushing to shut down Twin Rivers because operating rural schools is viewed by state officials as expensive and inefficient.
“I just wish people would open their eyes and see,” Lowe said. “I don’t want to call it a conspiracy, but everything points to the fact that they just want to get rid of all these small, rural schools.”
The Twin Rivers case bears some similarities to a pending legal battle over the closure of the Fourche Valley school last year.
In that case, the Two Rivers School Board in west Arkansas voted 6-1 in March 2009 to close the Fourche Valley school and bus students to the Plainview-Rover school instead.
Officials argued that the closure would save the cashstrapped district $1.3 million annually.
Since the vote wasn’t unanimous, the closure went to the state board for ratification. The state board voted 5-2 to close Fourche Valley in April 2009.
A group of Fourche Valley parents then challenged the vote in Pulaski County Circuit Court. But Circuit Judge Collins Kilgore denied their petition.
The parents appealed Kilgore’s decision to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Fendley represents parents in Fourche Valley and Twin Rivers.
In the Fourche Valley case, Fendley is arguing that the closure has caused some students to spend more than three hours on the bus each day to get to their new school.
He said this amount of transportation is excessive and violates the students’ constitutional right to an adequate education.
Parents in Twin Rivers have also complained that their children will endure much longer bus rides to reach their new schools.
“The Fourche Valley case, if we were to prevail, the Twin Rivers kids might benefit too,” Fendley said.
Click on the link below to read the recipients’ bios. Many thanks to those who attended the reception in North Little Rock and to Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas for their sponsorship of the event.
L-R: Don House of Walnut Ridge (Lifetime Achievement Award) with wife Mary; Kelly and Dana Kelley of Jonesboro (Champion award)
Juanita Weston Burton of Eudora accepts award
Delight School Teacher Cyndi Moorman, of Okolona, accepts award
Ron Crawford of Little Rock accepts Champion of Rural Arkansas award
Talitha Hardin of Leslie accepts Champion award
March 1- May 31 is the Great American Cleanup in Arkansas. At least two of our communities have taken the challenge to have a community-wide cleanup. Delight members cleaned up their downtown in March and Eudora used Spring Break week to do a city-wide spring cleaning. (see photo below)
Will your community take the challenge and have a cleanup? Let’s make our communities sparkle! Send us a photo of your cleanup event and we’ll post it here.
Keep Arkansas Beautiful will provide trash bags, bottled water, banners, T-shirts, etc for your cleanup project if you register your event with them. For more information and registration forms visit the website at www.keeparkansasbeautiful.com. Coordinator Sarah Wruck can be contacted at 1-888-742-8701.
Some of the Eudora clean-up volunteers pose for photo (photo courtesy of Chicot Newspapers)