PINE BLUFF, Ark. (AP) — The Pine Bluff School District has been returned to local control five years after the state took the district over and declared it in fiscal distress.
The Arkansas Board of Education on Friday unanimously voted to return the district to local control after school district officials made the case for nearly three hours in favor of the move, the Pine Bluff Commercial reported.
As part of the vote, the district will conduct school board elections every year, starting with one seat each in 2024, 2025 and 2026 and two seats each in 2027 and 2028. Each term will be for five years.
About 100 supporters of the district, along with state department staff, gathered at the Pine Bluff Convention Center, where the state board meeting was held, to hear the district leaders make the case to remove the “limited-authority” status from the Pine Bluff School Board.
The state took over the district in 2018 after declaring it unlikely to have enough money to operate by the end of that school year. The district’s spending coupled with declining student enrollment had led to shrinking revenue, with the district projected to have a $2 million deficit by April 2019.
By law, the state board had to after five years return the district to local control, annex or consolidate it with another district, or reconstitute it with another form of government.
