EXECUTIVE SESSION with
Laura Clark
By Steve Brawner Editor
Laura Clark has spent her life in McCaskill, a southwest Arkansas town of about 100 people, and now she serves as board president of the Blevins School District where she was educated. A nurse by trade, she became an educator and eventually vice chancellor of academics at the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana. She’s responsible for everything directly related to academics, including college transfer courses, workforce certification, and concurrent credit. This past academic year, she served as interim chancellor. Clark still considers herself to be a nurse and is a big believer in workforce education. Students with a skill can earn an income. That belief comes from watching her dad run a concrete business despite being unable to read. Clark discussed her dad’s influence, her philosophy about education, and what happened when she and her daughter discovered a World War II-era bomb on the family’s property. You’re from here? “Yes. I moved to Arkansas when I was about five years old to a little town, McCaskill, which is about six miles west of here, and I have pretty much lived there my entire life since then. I went to school here at Blevins and graduated here. I was here when the new high school was built. I believe my daddy poured the floor of that new high school. I attended the high school here up until I think when we moved in ninth grade. This building remained abandoned for years and then it burned, but we do have the bell tower out of that building. I can remember being in that building. I remember the elementary, played ball in the gym, so it’s a hometown. It’s my hometown.” 24 June 2021 Report Card
Did you have an opponent when you ran for school board? “Not the first time, no.” Did you soon learn why no one else wanted the job? “You know, it can be challenging, but it’s rewarding. I think the great thing about a board – especially if you’re diverse, and we have a diverse board in every aspect: male-female, gender, race, our jobs, our areas that we grew up in – we represent our students. We look like our students, or what they’re going to be. Some are going to go to college,
and I feel like I’m great with that. I can make sure that we’re preparing students or be intuitive in the things that we’re doing for college preparation. Some [board members] went straight to the workforce. They’re intuitive about workforce skills and what you need to do and so forth. So I think it’s really good. We have an educator on our board, and that’s good because they understand public school education.” Did you get a good education here? “I did. I’m a first-generation college student. Many of our kids are going to
