Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Letter from Nevada District's attorney had nothing to do with charter failure

While many patrons of the Emmet School District consider the Nevada School District responsible for Emmet's failure to become a charter district, this isn't the case.

Though the attorney for the Nevada District did submit a letter to the Arkansas Department of Education voicing opposition to Emmet becoming a charter district, the letter was not admitted or acknowledged in the hearing.

Luke Gordy, a member of the State Board of Education, said in an email, the decision to deny Emmet's charter request seemed to be predicated on the fact that, by converting an entire district to charter status, the Board would be eliminating the opportunity for children to have a choice of attending school in a non-charter environment.

"To eliminate the opportunity for choice," Gordy wrote, "by converting an entire district to charter status would be counter to the intent of the charter law. Thus, the reason for the denial."

Rick McAfee, Nevada superintendent, said Emmet knew about the attorney's letter before he did, and the letter was never intended to stop the charter application, but to further Nevada's case in a suit the district is involved in against Emmet.

"The letter didn't get counted," McAfee said. "We didn't have standing in the case, and it was never mentioned to the state board."

McAfee met with Gordy and said their discussion centered around the idea of creating a charter district would be opening a "can of worms". However, by the time McAfee and Gordy met, the decision to deny Emmet's application had already been made.

McAfee pointed out Emmet can still apply for charter status, even though it's being annexed into the Blevins School District (assuming the state board approved the annexation. This will be decided at the Board's April meeting.)

"Nevada has no standing and can't oppose the consolidation (Emmet and Blevins first decided to administratively consolidate, but later chose the annexation route instead)," he said. "The Prescott District would have standing to make objections, and the Nevada County Quorum Court can object under the new rules and regulations."

According to McAfee, the Board had two special meetings in March concerning consolidations and annexations and listed who would be allowed to object. Under the rules, a community and citizen groups.

"I think the public is being misled by statements about Emmet being able to stay there," McAfee said. "No one can promise it."

This could be the case with all consolidations and annexations across the state, as Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is looking at putting a measure on the November ballot to allow voters to decide whether school districts should have student populations of 1,500 or not. Should this get on the ballot and be approved, all consolidations and annexations would be null and void.