Annual school board elections will be held in May rather than September starting in 2018.
School board members voted during their meeting on Tuesday to hold school elections at the same time as primary elections in May rather than the general election in November. During odd years, the school board election will take place on the day the elections would be held if it were an even year.
Act 910 of the 91st General Assembly requires that school board elections be moved from September to either the May primary or the November general election.
Superintendent Ken Ramey recommended the school board choose the May primary date. He explained that electing a new board member in May would allow them to begin training in June and follow the budget process all the way through rehiring the superintendent in January.
"November is inconvenient for that process to me," Ramey said.
The number of voters participating in the election is also a consideration, he said. Forty-six people voted in the September school board election, the first contested election in Siloam Springs in a number of years. Only people living in School Board Zone 2 were allowed to participate.
"If we wait till November we may have more people voting, but we may have more uneducated voters because the bigger political picture -- the national and state -- may overwhelm a school board election, where people don't really know who they are voting for," Ramey said.
Ramey said that he contacted election commissioners in both Washington and Benton Counties and found that districts in Fayetteville, Rogers, Westfork, Decatur, Fort Smith, Gentry, Greenland, Elkins, Prairie Grove and Gravette have all selected May. Bentonville's school board selected to hold their elections in November, he said.
In other business, school board members voted to accept the resignation of Bryan Ross, head football coach, who formally resigned on Nov. 10.
"After much though and prayer, I have decided to step down as head football coach at Siloam Springs High School effective at the end of the 2017-2018 school year," Ross wrote in his resignation letter. "I am profoundly grateful to the administration of our school district for the opportunity to lead the Panthers the last nine years, as well as the parents and fans who have supported us over that time. But most of all I would like to thank the players and coaches with whom I have been able to share this experience on a daily basis, because it is these relationships that truly matter."
Ross has been working in the district for 14 years and has served as head football coach for nine years, according to Ramey. He described Ross as a "very patient and good person."
"I don't think many people realized just how much he stabilized us. There for a while we were rolling over coaches every two years. It was a nightmare," Ramey said. "He put aside his ego and wanted to be a Panther and worked really hard for our kids. He's felt like he's sincerely done all he can do and wants to move on."
"We should all thank him for his effort," said Brian Lamb, board president. "And the years that he tried. It's not all about win loss, you know it's what you do with kids... He had a large impact on kids and I know my son appreciated him."
"You know, the two years we spent in the 7A-West really said a lot about him and what he coached through that. Every week was just really, really tough," said school board member Roger Holroyd.
General News on 11/19/2017