The Little Rock School board had a weighty and sober meeting Thursday night. The price for the new West Little Rock high school came back, and the cost will be over $153 million. This is well above the $85 million we were told it would cost when our city approved a millage a few years ago.
This is an astounding jump in price and one that will have dire consequences for majority African American and Latino school projects we committed to in the same millage.
Most of the board members seemed committed to delivering on the new West Little Rock school, but they opted Thursday to put off a vote that would commit the district to the new price tag from construction company Baldwin & Shell. The “West” high school is to be built on the current West School of Innovation campus. When completed, the new school will have room for 1,200 students.
The West high school was always based on the faith commitment of, “If we build it, they will come,” with “they” being families in West Little Rock. I have gone on record the last few years saying that, given the growth patterns of our city, we needed to build a school out there. I still think that is probably true, but the reality that we will be spending over half of the millage money on this one school makes me terribly sad.
Board member Vicki Hatter asked if our district wanted to commit to a school in the western part of the city for 1,200 students when we don’t know if they are going to attend. She also raised concerns that the Arkansas LEARNS Act, which creates a universal voucher program, would allow many West Little Rock families to have more options in terms of private schools. She said she’s not willing to build a new school based on the hope that kids will come. She was adamant that we have to take care of the buildings our kids are in now.
Kelsey Bailey, the district’s chief financial officer, showed the board all the outstanding projects we have in the majority African American schools. If the board builds the West high school, they will be short almost $32 million for other projects. This means we will be telling African American families to wait a little longer until we can find more money.
Bailey suggested that we could go back to the voters for a second lien on our debt, which would increase our already large debt payment. With shrinking revenue, this seems unwise.
Hatter asked what would happen if we paused the construction. Bailey said we would not have a school. Hatter continued to bring up the fact that we don’t have a student body to attend the school. We are building this school on faith that kids will come. She asked if the most vulnerable kids would continue to suffer while we directed our resources to the west.
Board member Greg Adams asked if there was time to slow down and wait until the board’s Dec. 14th meeting to decide. He was told yes. Adams then made a motion to postpone action on the new school construction until Dec. 14.
Adams still supports building the new school. He argued that we were able to fill Roberts and Pinnacle View — an elementary school and middle school in West Little Rock — and he believes that we will fill the new high school.
Ali Noland said she supported the pause. She was wrestling with keeping our commitments. How do we keep our commitments to both West Little Rock and the Black families who have committed themselves to our district? She encouraged the board to get more data. I think she is absolutely right on that. (Editor’s note: Noland frequently writes for the Arkansas Times.)
Board members Norma Johnson and Joyce Wesley asked the administration to go back and find ways to get this price down. They both agreed it was important to build the school.
After the discussion, the board voted to postpone the vote until the Dec. 14 meeting.
It was clear to me that the board will go forward with this plan. That means African American and Latino families will more than likely have to wait again for improvements to their buildings. We need to say this, own i, and be as honest as we can.
With the $300 million millage after interest growth, we will have about $331 million to spend. With the new West high school costing $153 million, we will be $32 million short on all the promises we made to other schools.
If we keep our promise to West, we will have to break our promise to the rest of the city. That’s just how the math works.
Building this school was always going to be a leap of faith. For me the millage was exciting because we were going to do both things: take care of the west and take care of the majority Black schools throughout our city. That was the school board’s goal in 2014 before the district was taken over by the state. But here we are again, going forward with the west and telling the majority black schools to wait. I’m trying to embrace the sadness I feel here and not let it come out as anger, but the anger keeps percolating up.
My hope is the administration will reduce the cost of construction, and my faith is that our board will work hard to find the money to improve the majority African American and Latino schools that are the majority in our district. The board will return to this next month.
After approving their consent agenda, the school board jumped immediately into financial matters. The board will be called upon in the next year to make some significant changes to our schools. Superintendent Jermall Wright has warned the board that they will need to cut about $16 million out of the budget next year because of declining enrollment.
The finances of the district are stable right now. The fund balance has dropped below $16 million, and that is something we will need to keep an eye on. The balances on all the funds fluctuate throughout the year because of how revenue is collected and released to the district. We need to keep an eye on this fund to make sure it goes back up. This is our rainy day fund. If we are paying the bills from the fund balance then we are spending too much money and need to cut expenditures.
Tonight was Noland’s last night as a board member. Other board members and the superintendent had only praise for her. I’ll write more about her tenure in the future, but I want to say that as a long time observer of our district, Noland has been one of the best if not the best board members I’ve ever observed. She brought keen insights to every issue and a passionate commitment to the idea that we can take care of all kids in our district. Most importantly, she spoke in support of the Black and brown kids in this district and she demanded that we do right by them.
She not only talked about civil rights and equity; she wrote policy and advocated for real change. Her legal wisdom and thoughtful stances will be missed on the board, but luckily we will have another great board member joining next month.
Anna Strong brings years of experience fighting for kids across our state and I believe she will do a great job of pushing our city to do better by those kids we’ve historically left out and left behind. We will miss Noland at the board meetings, but we all know she will be fighting for our city and all our kids in new and exciting ways.
