Altheimer merger with Dollarway approved
By Rob MoritzLITTLE ROCK -- Despite the threat of a lawsuit, the Arkansas Board of Education voted 5-1 on Monday to approve the voluntary merger of the Altheimer United School District with the Dollarway School District in Pine Bluff.
While both school districts are classified as fiscally distressed, Dollarway does have a positive fund balance, board members were told.
Pleased with the decision, Dollarway school board member Robert Morehead said, "I was serious when I said that we don't intend to waste the opportunity that Arkansas gave us by allowing us to merge with this district."
Altheimer Interim Superintendent Shirley Cunningham told the board that Dollarway was the only neighboring school district that offered to accept her district.
"We're very grateful that Dollarway's district did answer our S.O.S. e-mail," she said.
State Sen. Hank Wilkins IV, D-Pine Bluff, and Rep. David Rainey, D-Dumas, urged the board to support the merger.
"If hard work and a willingness to come together in the best interest of the kids ... makes an annexation work, then this annexation will work," Rainey said.
Board member Randy Lawson of Bentonville said he supported the merger because it was voluntary and initiated by one of the districts.
"These two districts voluntarily came before us asking us to do this," he said. "It's a local cultural issue."
During the two-hour board meeting, Assistant Education Commissioner Bobbie Davis, said that both districts are in their first year of fiscal distress. At the end of June, she said, Altheimer had a fund balance of negative $27,000. Without the merger, the district faces a fund balance of negative $250,000 by the end of the upcoming school next year.
Education Commissioner Ken James said something must be done.
"We cannot write them a check to allow them to continue as a school district," he said.
Under the merger, Altheimer students from pre-K to 5th grade will attend school in the Altheimer-Sherrill High School building. The rest of the students will be bused to Dollarway.
Dollarway Superintendent Thomas Gathen also said that a fleet of buses will remain at the Altheimer district for transporting students.
There are about 430 students in the Altheimer district and about 1,500 in the Dollarway district.
The Dollarway district is making cuts to improve the district's financial well being, Gathen said, adding that many of the teachers now in the Altheimer district will be hired by the newly created district.
He also said that a millage increase is to be presented to voters later this year.
Dorothy Singleton, who has seven nieces and nephews in the Altheimer school district, said she and others who oppose the merger plan to file a lawsuit this week.
She asked the board on Monday to postpone a vote on the merger until a state study is completed on the impact of busing on students. She estimated that some Altheimer students will be on the bus for 90 minutes or more a day if the merger is approved.
After the meeting, Singleton declined to identify her attorney.
Department of Education attorney Scott Smith told board members that study is unrelated to the Altheimer/Dollarway merger.
Smith told board members that the state Department of Education had rejected three proposals from Altheimer school officials on how the district would address its fiscally distressed classification.
Also speaking against the merger was Jean Verlender, an English teacher at Altheimer High school, who said scores by high school students have improved in the past years and that the school is no longer on the state's academically distressed list.
Monday's decision to allow the merger comes less than two weeks after a Pulaski County circuit court judge ordered the board to reconsider its decision to close the isolated Paron School District. In that ruling, Judge Jay Moody also said the Paron School District could remain open for the upcoming school year.
Paron residents filed the lawsuit after the state Board of Education voted in May to support the Bryant School District's proposal to close the Paron schools.
Bryant officials said it was not financially feasible to continue operating the small high school it annexed in 2004.
Voting for the merger on Monday were Board Chairwoman Diane Tatum of Pine Bluff, and board members Sherry Burrow of Jonesboro, Tim Knight of Arkadelphia, Mary Jane Rebick of Little Rock, and Naccaman Williams of Springdale.
Voting against the merger was Ben Mays of Clinton.