09/14/15  Pine Bluff School Administration And Teachers Need To Work Together More

 

According to members of the Arkansas Board of Education, the Pine Bluff School Board, administration and teachers need to work together more to bring three of the district's campuses out of academic distress.

Board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock said during a meeting Friday, there seems to be a difference of opinion among district leaders on how the plan was working so far.

The state placed Pine Bluff High, Jack Robery Jr. High and Belair Elementary on academic distress status in 2014 after fewer than half of the students scored at proficient levels on the state math and literacy exams over the past three years. If no improvement is seen, the individual schools or even the entire Pine Bluff School District is in danger of being taken over by the state.  The locally elected school board could be dissolved and the superintendent could be removed. The superintendent of the district, T.C. Wallace lives in Nashville, Tennessee and stays in Pine Bluff during the week. Saviers says she's concerned about an apparent conflict between Wallace and the chief school reform officer, Alesia Smith, and she says she's also concerned that Wallace's provisional certificate expires in March of next year.