Callaway, Hatter win runoffs for LRSD seats
Evelyn Hemphill Callaway and Vicki Hatter won runoff elections Tuesday for a newly established Little Rock School Board.
With all precincts reporting, unofficial results were:
Zone 3
Eveyln Hemphill
Callaway..........................395
Tommy Branch Jr...........196
Zone 6
Vicki Hatter ...................267
FranSha’ Anderson ....... 187
“The people spoke,” Callaway said late Tuesday about her win.
Callaway said her first priority is to learn what she needs to know, and
“I’ll be ready to work.”
Hatter, speaking about her win, said she was focused on students.
“This is really about making sure children in
the city have an advocate on the board,” Hatter said. “It’s about children, equity and their future.”
Tuesday’s winners will join Michael Mason, Sandrekkia Morning, Leigh Ann Wilson, Ali Noland, Norma Johnson, Greg Adams and Jeff Wood — all elected in the Nov. 3 general election — on the school district’s first elected board in nearly six years.
Little Rock School District leaders are planning for the nine new board members to participate in online training sessions Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and hold a first organizational meeting Dec. 17.
With the runoff election completed, a majority of the newly elected board won their seats with backing of the Little Rock Education Association, the union of school system employees that was removed last year — at the direction of the Arkansas Board of Education — as the employees’ agent in collective bargaining for contracts.
The new board, however, is prohibited by the state Education Board from reinstating union recognition until such time as the district exits the Level 5-Intensive Support category of the state’s school district accountability system.
New board members — including Callaway and Hatter— received the association’s support as did Mason, Wilson, Noland and Adams.
New board members Wood and Johnson were supported in their elections by Arkansas Learns, which describes itself as the voice of business for excellent education, as well as by prominent business and philanthropic leaders.
The 21,000-student capital city school district has been without an elected board since January 2015 when the state Board of Education voted 5-4 to take control of the district because of academic distress. The takeover included dissolving the then-seven-member elected board and placing the superintendent under state direction.
The state Education Board voted in late 2019 to return the district to local governance after the election of a new board, but there are some restrictions on the board until the district can exit from the state’s Level 5-Intensive Support category.
Those restrictions not only prohibit the board from recognizing the Little Rock Education Association as a sole contract bargaining agent but also from altering the makeup of the recently established Personnel Policy Committees that serve as advisory organizations on employee-related issues. The board is also prohibited from changing superintendents and from instigating lawsuits.
Callaway, 69, is a retired, longtime family consumer science teacher in the district, and Hatter, 42, is a business office employee at a fleet management company and a longtime activist for restoring local governance to the district.
Branch, 47, is assistant director of day programs at Friendship Community Care and served for a short time on the School Board in 2012-13. Anderson, 54, is chief executive officer of the Arkansas State Independent Living Council and immediate past president of the Little Rock Parent Teacher Association Council of school PTA presidents.
The runoff candidates were the top two vote-getters in four-person races for the two zones in the Nov. 3 election. However, no candidate in either race received more than 50% of the votes cast, which was necessary to avoid a runoff.
Anderson received 2,373 votes to Hatter’s 1,791 votes in the Nov. 3 election.
Branch received 2,063 votes to Callaway’s 1,875 votes in the Nov. 3 election.
Little Rock attorney and Blue Hog Report blogger Matt Campbell had questioned Anderson’s eligibility for elected office because of her misdemeanor hot check convictions in the 1990s, which are now sealed, and a 2006 state audit report noting her guilty plea to a misdemeanor theft of property charge tied to personal use of a state credit card while she worked for the Arkansas Transitional Employment Board.
Anderson responded that she is eligible to hold elected office because she has paid her debt and the convictions have been sealed. She has cited her work history as a nonprofit organization leader, her training in executive leadership and her experience in advocacy for children with special needs as qualifying her for the School Board role.
Branch’s candidacy for the School Board occurred as he awaits a June 30 trial on charges of driving while intoxicated and prohibited driving stemming from his Sept. 20 arrest at Interstate 30 East and Interstate 430. A breath sample resulted in a test result of 0.18%, according to Arkansas State Police records. The test result was twice the legal minimum of 0.08% for intoxication. He has pleaded innocent to the charges.
Tuesday’s winners will join Michael Mason, Sandrekkia Morning, Leigh Ann Wilson, Ali Noland, Norma Johnson, Greg Adams and Jeff Wood — all elected in the Nov. 3 general election — on the school district’s first elected board in nearly six years.