SUGGS, 45, CHARACTERIZES HIMSELF as a former teen-age thug who ran with an inner city gang in St. Louis and has knife and bullet scars to prove it. He credits his transfer to a high school away from bad influences and where he took up sports as turning his life around. He attended Southern Illinois University on a track scholarship and did a tour of duty in Iraq with the Army Reserve. As principal of Donnan Middle School in Indianapolis, he won the prestigious Milken Family Foundation Award for academic and discipline changes he wrought at what had been a struggling school. When he was hired to come to Little Rock, he had risen to deputy superintendent and chief of staff for the Indianapolis School District. He is soft-spoken, well-spoken and has a sense of humor. He knew what he was in for when he came to Little Rock, which he described as having a “rich history” in education — one that includes the crisis at Central High, the battles over busing and school assignments that started in the 1970s, white flight, the desegregation lawsuit that put Pulaski County’s three districts under court order for 30 years and, now, attacks by the billionaire Walton family’s charter school proponents. (Even the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce — a body you would think would want to attract newcomers to Arkansas’s capital city — created an organization, Speak Up for Schools, to publish criticism of Little Rock’s schools. It’s defunct, replaced by the Walton-funded
Arkansas Learns, which lately seems to exist solely to attack the way the district is run.) Suggs believes the district lacks respect because “we haven’t been telling our story. ... For so long we have been humble.” He believes Little Rock needs to tout its excellent teachers, its National Merit scholar numbers, and its schools that are high achieving.
BRIAN CHILSON
SUGGS RAISED EYEBROWS right off the bat when, in August, he issued “cultural imperatives” (copied from Indianapolis) to employees and came up with the less-than-awesome slogan “The NEW
WALKER
BRIAN CHILSON
He is bringing to Little Rock innovative ideas in teaching reading ... or he is wrecking Little Rock’s results-proven program, Reading Recovery. He’s helping students failed by “priority” schools by changing the schools ... or helping the schools by changing the students. The members of the Little Rock School Board are pulling together and finding common ground ... or are still divided along racial lines, lines that have paradoxically aligned black superintendents with the white minority on the school board. The teachers’ union, which supported Dr. Suggs when he was a candidate for the job, has begun to question its wisdom; its membership cast a “no confidence” vote in the superintendent last year after rejecting the district’s pay offer. Thorny John Walker, the sometimes-confrontational lawyer in the just-concluded 32-year school desegregation case, calls Suggs the “most incompetent of the black superintendents we’ve had.” Moving from cold to warm, school board member C.E. McAdoo, who represents Zone 2 in Central Little Rock, says Suggs is doing a “reasonable job.” Diane Curry, who represents Little Rock’s southernmost neighborhoods, describes him a “first-time superintendent” climbing a learning curve. Board president Greg Adams, who represents West Little Rock’s Zone 4, says he’s feeling “encouraged and optimistic” about the district and that Suggs “is a significant part of that.” Leslie Fisken, the Zone 3 representative from the Heights, calls Suggs a “team leader” who is innovative and “laser-focused on students.”
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Little Rock School District — Where WE Put Children First.” That was followed by his instituting a dress code — the teacher handbook had already addressed this, saying teachers should dress appropriately — that noted that “foundation garments” should be worn, a caveat that some thought was unneeded. Since, Suggs has instituted more substantive changes: Faced with having to take $3 million from the district’s reserves to make budget this year, Suggs is laying off administrators. That may or may not be a good idea — the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial page, which supports Suggs as it did his
Walton-blessed predecessor Roy Brooks, thinks it is — but there’s little question that Suggs blundered in including the names of positions he wants to end, and the employees, all women, who fill them, in a list of personnel changes presented at the School Board meeting in January. Questioned about the appearance of the names, the district’s lawyer, Chris Heller, explained that the employees had a right to due process and that it would be improper for the board to review them prior to that process. By laying off six employees and ending a stipend for a seventh, the district would save more than $500,000 a year. The employees Suggs intends to fire include Karen DeJarnette, director of the Planning, Research and Evaluation office; Wanda Huddle, director of curriculum/social studies; Linda Newbern, English Department secretary; Irma Routen, grant project director and music director; Blondell Taylor, curriculum and social studies secretary; Marion Woods, director of physical education and health, and Suzanne Davis, middle school and secondary education supervisor. These layoffs are just a start, Suggs said. He expects to eliminate 25 positions, which will save the district almost $2 million. The cuts are necessary, he said, to have a “sustainable system.” By sustainable, he means the district has to figure out a way to operate when state desegregation dollars — $37.3 million a year for the 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and (for construction) 2017-18 — dry up. The district has $40 million in reserves. The $3 million deficit stems from lower than expected enrollment and a decrease in tax revenues due to declining property values. Suggs believes, however, he can grow the district by 2,000 students in the next few years, partly by transforming Geyer Springs Elementary to the Geyer Springs High Ability Academy, approved last week by the school board, and Forest Heights Middle School to Forest Heights STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) Academy. GEYER SPRINGS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is one of seven Little Rock schools designated by the state Department of Education as “priority” schools; its literacy and math scores on the Arkansas Benchmark Exam over the past several years put it among the lowest 5 percent in the state. Such schools threaten the Little Rock district with a state takeover. In the 2014-15 school year, however, the Southwest elementary school will be transformed into the Geyer Springs High Ability Academy for students identified as gifted and talented. All of its 13 teachers will be certified as gifted and talented. It will open with grades 1 through 5, but will drop the first and second grades and add sixth, seventh and eighth over the next three years. It will not have a kindergarten; because registration has already started, the district will have to find space for those already registered in other schools. Suggs’ first proposal would have required all Geyer Springs students to reapply to the school. By moving low-achieving students out of Geyer CONTINUED ON PAGE 14
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FEBRUARY 20, 2014
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