RISON - The Cleveland County School Board voted Monday night to join a possible lawsuit challenging the Arkan‐sas Legislative Council’s move to redirect federal COVID relief funds toward bonuses for teach‐ers and staff rather than allow‐ing the districts to use the money for other purposes.
On July 21, the Legislative Council voted to rescind the legislature’s previous decision giving the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) the author‐ity to spend $500 million in the American Rescue Plan’s Ele‐mentary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds that was awarded to the state. ADE allowed each school district to spend the money as they see fit as long as those projects fell within the federal guidelines of how the American Rescue Plan could be used.
Instead, the Legislative Coun‐cil’s action redirected districts to use that money of one-time bonuses of $5,000 to each teachers and $2,500 to the other district staff members.
Superintendent Craig Dupuy told the school board during its regular monthly meeting Mon‐day night that the district had in‐tended to use a portion of its American Rescue Plan money to replace the aging air condi‐tioning units in the high school, a project estimated to cost about $1.2 million. Air conditioning/ ventilation is one of the uses al‐lowed under the American Res‐cue Plan.
In addition to the federal funds, Dupuy said the district would be using $452,004.36 in partnership funding that the state awarded to the school dis‐trict to help pay for the project.
Following the Legislative Council’s action last month, Dupuy said the air conditioning project as well as other projects have been put on hold until there is a resolution on how the American Rescue Plan money can be spent.
Dupuy told the school board Monday that the Marion School District had used its legal team to draft a lawsuit that would be filed if the Legislative Council officially denies a school district the right to use the money for something other than the bonuses. The lawsuit contends that the Legislative Council has no authority on how the federal money can be spent.
The Marion School District sent a letter to other school dis‐tricts across the state inviting them to join in the lawsuit if they wish. The neighboring Woodlawn School Board also voted to join in on the lawsuit during its meeting Monday night.
Following last month’s deci‐sion by the Legislative Council, Dupuy said the state has re‐quested information from each district as to their status regard‐ing the bonuses. Districts could respond in one of three ways: send in information confirming the district is using the Ameri‐can Rescue Plan money for bonuses; send in information (see SCHOOL page 8) (continued from page 1) showing how the district plans to use the money for the bonuses; or if the money has been spent or allocated for other projects, send in information justifying why the money was not used for bonuses.
The Cleveland County School District received about $1.5 mil‐lion from the American Rescue Plan, and has spent about $500,000 of it so far, leaving a balance of about $1 million. Dupuy said the money was used to pay $2,500 one-time bonuses to teachers and staff as well as pay for curriculum and fund a summer school program de‐signed to help students who may have fallen behind academically during the COVID pandemic.
Dupuy told the board Monday night that it would cost about $515,130 from what is left of the American Rescue Plan money to give the $5,000 and $2,500 bonuses. He said the figure in‐cludes the fringe benefits.
The district was intending to use about $650,000 of American Rescue Plan money to go toward the high school air conditioning project.
“Right now, there is no way for us to pay the raises plus com‐plete the ARP (American Res‐cue Plan) projects,” Dupuy told the board.
Dupuy said he felt politics was behind the Legislative Council’s move.
He explained that Gov. Asa Hutchinson was considering us‐ing some of the state’s $1.628 million budget surplus to fund salary increases for teachers. While he originally floated the idea of raising the minimum salary to $46,000, that number was eventually reduced to $42,000. The state minimum teacher salary is currently $36,000.
Rather than take the salary in‐crease to the legslators, Dupuy said Hutchinson bypassed the council and took it to Education Secretary Johnny Key instead. Legislators, meanwhile, ex‐pressed concerns about funding the pay raises over the longterm, and preferred to address teacher pay in the next general assembly rather than the special session.
Hutchinson eventually an‐nounced that he was pulling the teacher salaries from the special session, which Dupuy said re‐sulted in teachers expressing their anger at the legislature.
“It turned into a big mess,” Dupuy told his board, noting that legislators were “getting abused” on social media and other public outlets.
Dupuy said the Legislative Council’s decision to use the American Rescue Plan money for bonuses was a way to ap‐pease the teachers and school staff.
While the Cleveland County School District has yet to let bids on the air conditioning project, Dupuy said the Legisla‐tive Council’s action has left some school districts scrambling to find ways to pay for projects that were already underway.
“It’s aggravating. It’s deflat‐ing. It’s a gut punch to what we wanted to do,” he said.
Later in the meeting, Dupuy revealed two bids the district re‐ceived for replacing the roof on the high school, with the lowest coming in at about $389,000. In light of the American Rescue Plan ruling, Dupuy suggested taking no action on the project at this time.
School Safety
One issue that is being ad‐dressed during the current spe‐cial legislative session is school safety. Dupuy said there is dis‐cussion of possibly using $50 million of the state surplus to go toward school safety.
On that note, Dupuy said he recently conducted a walkthrough with Genesis Datacom reviewing the safety measures that are in place. Genesis Data‐com is the Little Rock company that installed the electronic lock‐ing doors as well as the security cameras on campus.
Dupuy said the 5th-6th grade building needs some electronic locking doors installed, several cameras across campus needed to be upgraded, and additional cameras needed to be installed in the elementary. The cost of those upgrades and additions was estimated to be about $56,000.
He also mentioned that the dis‐trict is taking the steps to move forward with training school staff to become armed certified school security officer. The board voted in July to give Dupuy permission to begin the process of implementing the certified security officer pro‐gram on campus.
Other Business
In other business during the Cleveland County School Board’s regular monthly meet‐ing Monday night:
• The board voted to transfer about $42,000 from the legal fund balance to the building fund in order to stay in compli‐ance with Act 1105. Dupuy ex‐plained the state law requires a school district’s legal fund bal‐ance at the end of the fiscal year not to exceed 20 percent of its starting balance. He said Cleve‐land County started the year with $1,061,600 in the legal fund, and therefore had to move about $42,000 from that fund into the building fund to stay in compliance with the law.
• The board voted to allow Cleveland County Head Start to negotiate a price of up to $10,000 on a vacant lot next the Early Head Start facility in Ri‐son. Head Start Director Laura Burns said they were finally able to reach someone with owner of the property, Wincorp Interna‐tional, Inc., about buying it. She siad they have been trying for about three years to find some‐one with the authority to discuss the land. Wincorp is the parent company of International Poul‐try Breeders at Rison. Dupuy said Head Start would use the property for more parking for the early head start facility there. It would also give Head Start ownership of that entire block.
• The board also approved al‐lowing Head Start to submit ap‐plications for four early child‐hood licensing program grants totaling $310,000.
• The board voted to hold the annual Cleveland County School District Report to the Public at 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12, in the Rison Elementary Au‐ditorium. The September school board meeting will follow the Report to the Public in the same location at 7 p.m.
• The board approved the dis‐trict’s Teacher and Administra‐tive Recruitment and Retention Plan (TARPP) as required by the state. Dupuy said the plan basi‐cally looks at recruitment and how it ties into the demograph‐ics of the district and area. He said the state will review about a third of the plans submitted.
Personnel
After meeting in executive session, the school board made the following decisions regard‐ing personnel:
• Accepted the resignations of Rison High School parapros Taylor Ercanbrack and Martha Oliver, and Rison Elementary custodian Diane Whitaker.
• Approved hiring Heather Neal as a Rison High School parapro, pending background check; and Kelly Holt as a morning/afternoon bus driver.
• Approved hiring Alaina Spurlock and Chasity Steitler as Cleveland County Head Start floaters, pending background checks.
• Accepted the resignations of Diana Taylor as the Senior High Beta Club sponsor (she will continue her regular teach‐ing duties); and Gayla Case as Rison High School music teacher.
• Approved hiring Ashley Besaw as a custodian, pending background check.