On Thursday, Little Rock School District Superintendent Jermall Wright walked members of the media through a recent onslaught of “contract non renewals.” This came hours before a long evening of termination hearings.
In 2023, The Arkansas LEARNS Act overturned the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act, which made it more difficult to fire teachers and created procedures to prevent teachers from being terminated quickly. The repeal resulted in increased usage of one-year contracts for teachers and district employees. In the wake of the change, many LRSD teachers will not stay employed for the 2024-2025 school year.
Meanwhile, the LRSD has been forced to cut $16 million from its budget. A PowerPoint the district released said that 80 to 90% of budget cuts needed to come from personnel. Wright said 66 teachers whose contracts were not renewed were let go for budgetary reasons while others were let go for performance issues. 16 non-teaching positions were eliminated after it was discovered that they weren't needed.
Wright says he does not “take these decisions lightly” and that he understands that employment is connected to “livelihood.”
Reasons for terminations
The non-renewals include interim or temporary educators who were not slated to have their contracts renewed but are free to reapply next year. Others did not satisfy the requirements of their teaching licenses.
27 teachers' contracts were not renewed because of performance issues. Many of these employees will be the subject of impending grievance hearings. Wright said the LRSD has avoided firing teachers for cause “until now.”
He says there is a history of placing low performing teachers in “high priority” schools, or schools with high poverty and low student performance.
“Even if it costs me my job,” Wright said, “I am okay with losing my job because I refuse to continue that practice of just putting people in roles or in jobs especially when it can negatively impact our kids.”
Wright said the district had spent years struggling with “accountability issues.”
“We just have not held ourselves accountable, or our employees accountable, for a long time.”
Vacancies
There are 99 vacant teaching positions across the district which could be refilled by non-renewed employees. The LRSD is also short eight secretaries, 11 janitors and over 60 paraprofessionals.
Wright says about 4% of the district's teaching workforce was lost due to budgetary reasons, but says he's hoping for over half to be re-hired back into the district. Wright is trying to make the interview process “rigorous” and done through “mutual consent.”
He says the cuts are not “disproportionately” affecting teachers, but teachers were also not renewed because of changes to middle school schedules. Wright said the district needed more math and science teachers and fewer social studies teachers to accommodate the schedule changes.
Three district schools were closed this year—Baseline Academy, Cloverdale Middle School, and the West High School of Innovation—resulting in 45 contract non-renewals.
Termination hearings
The LRSD held a hearing Thursday night on three terminations out of six that were scheduled. The hearings went on for almost 10 hours, starting at 5:30 in the afternoon and continuing into the early hours of Friday morning. Before each decision, the board would deliberate in a confidential executive session.
One employee, Robert Robinson, was terminated by a vote of five to one. He worked in human resources at the district for about five years, and is being recommended to not have his contract renewed. Robinson’s attorney Caleb Baumgardner argued that the termination was retaliation for Robinson whistleblowing about problems in HR.
“You brought to the attention of the head of human resources for the district that there were salary increases that were not consistent with board policy,” Baumgardner asked his client. “And subsequently you received notification that your contract would not be renewed. Is that correct?”
Robinson said yes, it was correct.
LRSD attorney Chris Heller said the non-renewal was to accommodate budget cuts. From the beginning of the year, one position from HR was set to be eliminated. During a personnel investigation, Robinson was said to have ranked at the bottom of the six people who worked in HR.
“What happened is not a conspiracy,” Heller said. “It's not retaliation, it's not age or gender discrimination. It is a fair interview process.”
Wright agreed. He said Robinson had several problems with his performance and low performance evaluations. He also said he had never heard Robinson's whistleblower complaints.
A second employee, Ron Calcagni, was recommended to be rehired somewhere else in the district. The board decided to "remedy" his employment, meaning working with Human Resources to find a position for which he'd be well-suited. A former professional football player, Calcagni worked as a coach at Pulaski Heights Middle School for 17 years.
“I have given a lot of my time and my heart,” he said. “And this is what I love to do.”
A third employee, Briana Austin, was not recommended for termination. By the time of the vote, it was the early hours of Friday morning and several board members had left. Two voted to terminate her while two voted against it.
Austin says she was not renewed because she did not agree to change the grades of D and F students. She called this “grossly unethical behavior.”
Heller said she was fired because 60% of her students were underperforming. The district agreed to give her an “intensive support plan.”
