Is The Beebe School District Responsible? Part II

Donald Ward, former Mayor and Floodplain Administrator, is responsible for development in Beebe's flood areas. But has the school district also contributed to the flooding?
Has the school district also developed within the flood zone of Beebe?
The answer is YES. The newly expanded field house is in a flood zone.Because schools are "special" they don't have to go by the same rules that private citizens do. When development occurs within a flood zone it raises the water level within that zone therefore causing greater flooding. So is the school district responsible for increased flooding in Beebe? Yes, Belinda it is.
ASU-Beebe requested a determination from the City concerning land it planned to build on. It wanted to know if this land was within a flood zone but the Beebe School District did not request a similar determination.
The Beebe School Board has also discussed plans that would likely increase flooding in the City that are not in a flood zone. BEWARE if you live across Center from the school campus.

Is The Beebe School District Responsible?

Everyone should know about the October 30th and Christmas Day flooding in the south part of Windwood. But did you know that the City passed an ordinance in 2003 requiring the City to notify buyers of homes about the danger of flooding. It also required the City to control development in flood areas. Neither of these were done. And do you know who was Mayor when this ordinance was passed. It was none other than Beebe School District teacher Donald Ward. He did not follow the regulations, which he approved, and allowed homes to be built and purchased which now have flooded. Some of these homes will be demolished because the Mayor did not do his job. Also, at one time Mayor Ward was the Floodplain Administrator for the City of Beebe. He allowed development in a floodplain which was established by a 1977 flood map. I'm not saying he is the only City official who didn't do their job but he was Mayor from 1999 until the new Mayor was elected.
Now back to the title of this post. Why is the school district responsible? If the district wouldn't have had Donald Ward on the payroll I doubt if he would have been Mayor. Then the rules and regulations of the City might have been followed and people would not be flooded out of their homes.

How Long WIll It Take

This morning while at Knight's I ran into Ms. McKown. She inquired if I had any problems with the district and I repeated what has been talked about before. She said she was not aware that it was the law for a school district to post on their website 10 days before a school board meeting the time, date and place of the upcoming meeting. Maybe, if she read this blog she would know about this law. It became law with the passage of Act 1588 of 2007. It has been mentioned a number of times on this blog.
I wonder why she didn't know about it. Isn't she, as well as the other board members, required to under go training each year? I wonder what Dr. Shook's excuse it that this law has not been followed?
How long will it take before Ms. McKown sees to it that the school district follows the law?

UPDATE:

From the Arkansas Department of Education website. This was also sent out to all superintendents in the form of a memo.

SCHOOL DISTRICT WEBSITE REQUIREMENTS CHECKLIST
.......
6-13-619(a)(3)(A)-(B) Meetings Not less than ten (10) days prior to the date of a regular meeting of its board of directors, the date, time, and place of the meeting. Not less than twenty-four (24) hours prior to a rescheduled regular meeting, the date, time, or place of the regular meeting
.......

Act 1588 is covered under 6-13-619 above.

Since this memo was sent to Dr. Shook there should be no reason why this requirement is not posted on the school website as required by law.

82%

That is the percent of students taking the Algebra ll End-of-Course exam last year from Beebe that will need help to achieve an A or a B in first year college math courses. Only 17% are prepared for college course work. Although, some districts did worse than Beebe others did better. One district had two schools in which all students scored at the prepared level or above.

School Is Out Today

The kids get a day off because school is closed today. The reason for this is today is a Professional Development day. So if the kids are not attending today why was there a Beebe school bus parked in the parking lot of Union Valley Church? After school let out last spring I emailed Dr. Shook asking her why there was a bus parked at this church when the school was not in session. I never did get an answer. Dr. Shook did not answer this simple question and today when school is not in session there is a bus parked at the church, again. Since Dr. Shook would not give an answer you are free to make up your own.

You Can't Vote Here

Again the school board, with the nudging of the superintendent, has decided that you can't vote in Beebe for the upcoming school election. Once again you have to travel to Searcy to vote. The excuse will be that the vote doesn't mean anything, nothing will change. Isn't it nice of them to decide about your vote.
Not only that, Dr. Shook continues her misinformation campaign about school elections. In the past she lied about her involvement in a campaign committee and now she cannot tell the truth. According to the Arkansas Secretary of State's latest procedures manual for election commissioners an early election can be held within a district. But according to Dr. Shook, Beebe is not allowed to conduct early voting within the district not only for the school election but for all elections except for county elections. This is just not true. According to Dr. Shook absentee voting is not allowed in Beebe except for county elections. This is not only not true but is ridiculous . Does Dr. Shook even know what absentee voting is? I think not.

"Enrollment Doesn't Seem To Be Up"

The above comment came from the August 26,2009 Leader. The article also says that last year's count was 3,117 according to Dr. Shook. The question I have is where did she get this enrollment figure? Last year on August 27, 2008 the Leader reported the enrollment was 3,194. By October 1st the count had dropped to 3,123. Most school see an increase after Labor Day but last year this did not happen. Will Beebe see another decrease this school year?
Again, Dr. Shook did not give a definite answer about the enrollment, just that it "doesn't seem to be up". In the same article the PCSSD and Lonoke didn't have a problem reporting their enrollment figures. As reported last year, why does Dr. Shook have such a problem with enrollment numbers?