Murfreesboro Diamond

Delight Supt. Turner resigns post; School ‘tables’ merger talks February 28, 2007 - | Editor/Publisher

By Lawrence Graves

DELIGHT - Delight Schools Supt. Curtis Turner Jr. resigned Monday night after recommending the school end exploratory merger talks.

The board voted unanimously to accept his resignation, which is effective June 30, and to “table” merger talks with Murfreesboro and Blevins Schools.

Supt. Turner submitted his resignation after an executive session which lasted about 20 minutes.

Most of Monday’s meeting was devoted to recent merger talks between Delight and Murfreesboro Schools. Supt. Turner, Board President Jim Kirkham, and board member Jeff Hill meet with Murfreesboro School Board members Feb. 8 prior to a Murfreesboro School Board meeting to explore merger possibilities.

Delight School officials said the school is faced with a declining enrollment and a “deteriorating financial condition” and wanted to explore all options including talks with Blevins Schools. Delight’s enrollment is about 360 students while Murfreesboro’s is 520.

After conducting some routine business Monday night the board recognized Cyndi Moorman, a Delight high school teacher and a member of Advocates for Community and Rural Education, a non-profit group “dedicated to cultivating strong relationships between schools and communities.”

Moorman distributed material to the board comparing Murfreesboro and Delight School financial data, a summary of bills effecting school districts pending in the current session of the Arkansas General Assembly and a list of suggestions for the school including hiring an outside accounting firm to review the school’s budget.

Moorman told the board and a crowd of over 20 teachers and patrons she felt the school should not to take any action in regard to mergers until June 2008 at the earliest. “Delight will lose under consolidation with a larger district because the bigger district will have predatory powers,” Moorman said. She said there is a good chance rural schools will be greatly helped financially by the current legislative session.

Moorman also said she felt the school should set up a committee made up of students, faculty, business leaders, and others to get information out to the community.

“We were told any decisions would take effect July 1 of this year, which is entirely too quickly for such a permanent action when there is no need,” Moorman said in a written statement to the board. “Any move toward merger is permanent and irreversible and will result in the complete dissolution of the smaller school.”

After Moorman’s address, Supt. Turner said the school discussed their options with Murfreesboro but there was no plan in place to consolidate with Murfreesboro or any other school.

“We were strictly there (at the Murfreesboro School Board meeting) to gather information to see if we need to take this further or put it on hold,” said Turner. “It was not something we were trying to hide or jump into - we just wanted to see what our options were.”

One patron said that Murfreesboro and Delight Schools had had merger discussions years ago, so the current talks weren’t anything new.

Supt. Turner then recommended the school board table merger talks “at this time.”

Kirkham asked the board for a show of hands for those in favor of tabling merger talks and the group voted overwhelmingly to table the talks. Kirkham and board member Gary Wofford voted against.
“I can’t speak for Gary, but I felt we should keep looking for facts and keep our options open,” Kirkham said Tuesday morning about his vote.

Kirkham said he was sad to see Turner resign but he was not surprised.

“He had been saying for awhile he wasn’t sure what he was going to do next,” Kirkham said.

Kirkham said the board decided after Turner resigned to have superintendent candidates meet with the board as a whole rather than set up a committee like they did previously.

In other business the board:

Approved a senior class trip to Dallas and two other overnight trip requests and renewed the contract of High School Principal Tanya Wilcher.

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