Little Rock School Superintendent Jermall Wright said more cuts to the district's budget are coming, speaking at a fundraiser hosted by the Arkansas Times Thursday.
At the event, Wright went through a slideshow documenting the ongoing struggles in the district, particularly regarding enrollment and funding. He says the LRSD will continue to lose both as they face more challenges in the coming years.
“I hear one good thing every three weeks,” he said after an attendee told him he was doing a good job.
The speech came a few months after Wright reversed his decision to step down from his post. In the first week of school this year, Wright said in a letter that he would no longer continue as the LRSD superintendent. He changed his mind after community members asked him to reconsider, and he was given a raise by the school board.
Wright's tenure as superintendent has been marked by massive budget cuts. Enrollment is tied to funding in the Little Rock School District, and the district only gets $7,700 from the state per student.
“We all know $7,700 is not enough to educate a student, but that's all we get,” he said.
Wright estimated the average per-student cost of education as being higher. For example, at the 300-student Carver STEAM Magnet Elementary School, the cost was $13,000 per student, while at Washington Elementary it was $16,000 per student.
As enrollment goes down, the district has less money to spend. In 2015, the LRSD got almost $64 million in foundation aid from the state. In 2024, they received $38.4 million.
Wright said the district has had to cut $12 million in the roughly two years he has worked for the LRSD.
“Last year's budget was forecast to be in the red,” he said.
The district spent the 2022-2023 school year working to lay off employees and slash services. This kept them from going into financial distress. Wright said the district will have to “go through the same cycle again to reduce expenditures.”
He said Arkansas LEARNS — a state law giving private money to public schools — along with the long history of enrollment hemorrhaging, has caused a “perfect storm.”
“Some of this has been impacted by LEARNS,” he said.
He was passionate about eliminating racial achievement disparities in the district, which is 58% Black.
“Black students are always at the bottom of every academic outcome you can think of,” he said
The district has also seen large increases in populations with high support needs or unique educational challenges. The number of children in special education services went up 17% in ten years. Wright said there is a significant increase in children with serious mental health or behavioral issues.
“We don't have the luxury of picking and choosing who we get to serve,” he said, as public schools are required by law to accept every student.
The number of students who do not speak English at home, or English Language Learners, has increased in the LRSD. In 10 years, the population increased 17%. Wright says the district is working to develop a pilot program for these students.
There have been some minor gains in literacy rates. In 2023, the third grade literacy rate was 27% in 2023. Now it's 34%. This is slightly higher than pre-pandemic 2017 rates of 32%.
Wright attributed low literacy rates to several factors including poverty, trauma, toxic stress, lack of early literacy experiences, expectations about Black and brown students and a lack of teachers who are trained in literacy.
Phone town halls
Over the past few months, the district held 10 town halls over whether to strengthen schools' cell phone regulations. Of the 457 attendees they surveyed, 96% said yes to more phone restrictions in the LRSD.
In January, Wright says he will make a recommendation to the board over phone regulations, but they plan to “discuss options” with school leaders in the meantime.
He says he will attend high school lunch periods to talk to students about the plan to strengthen phone rules.
