The superintendent of the Little Rock School District is getting ready for his second year on the job. Jermall Wright, who came to Little Rock last year after founding the Mississippi Achievement School District, says the 2022-2023 school year has been “fun.”
“It is everything that I have not expected,” he said, in an interview with KUAR News. “Every opportunity I had to interact with students and teachers, that’s the best part of my job.”
Wright says he's tried to focus on literacy in the past year, championing a program to provide virtual reading tutors to struggling students for 15 minutes a day. The LRSD contracts with an outside group called Ignite! Reading to implement the program.
“It takes a lot for me to cry,” Wright said, referencing one fifth-grader who told him about finally learning to read after years of struggling. “She was thankful for her tutoring partner."
Wright says LRSD students enrolled in the program love it.
“Kids are literally running down the room to get a chance to talk to their tutors,” he said.
Wright says over the year, he has learned a lot about the district's “overall organizational culture.”
“In 2023, we’re still dealing with all the things that happened in the past,” he said referencing LRSD's history of state takeovers and integration struggles.
Wright listed low enrollment as a problem the district is facing.
“We lose a lot of kids at elementary school, we gain some in high school,” he said. “But we lose a large chunk of kids as they approach middle school.”
Wright said he didn't feel comfortable saying why students leave the LRSD in middle school without more data, but guessed “perceptions about safety” could be to blame.
Arkansas LEARNS
Earlier this year, an education overhaul known as Arkansas LEARNS was signed into law by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Wright wants his staff to focus on “teaching and learning,” no matter the status of the law, which has been challenged in court.
“LEARNS or no LEARNS, we still have a large number of students in our district who are not reading on grade level. We still have a lot of culture issues within our communities and our district that we need to deal with.”
He says the “commentary and implementation” around the law has made his job more challenging.
In order to follow the requirements of LEARNS, the LRSD will be required to raise their minimum starting salary for teachers. Wright says they are working to comply with the law, while also giving step increases to teachers based on education and years of experience.
He expressed some concern over the part of LEARNS that allows struggling school districts to be taken over by private charter companies. He hopes to make sure the district is “solvent” enough to avoid this outcome.
The LRSD superintendent position has historically had a high turnover rate, but Wright says he plans to stay in the position.
“When you look at our history that we've had and some of the turnovers we have seen with superintendents,” he said. “I think that is playing a huge role in some of the outcomes we are seeing today. I have absolutely no plans to go or look elsewhere.”
