It's too early to know if it will happen, but a new law could make it possible for the Kingston School to return to its former independence. A lot of questions will have to be answered first.
Arkansas Act 919, passed in the 2025 legislative session, is primarily about the formation of isolated school districts. It allows small, isolated schools to detach from larger districts and potentially re-establish themselves as independent districts. This act effectively redresses unintended consequences of the Public Education Reorganization Act of 2003, which had led to the closure of many small schools due to consolidation.
Since Act 919's passage, Rural Special and Timbo schools are proposing to break away from the Mountain View School District. More recently, Bruno-Pyatt School patrons are investigating breaking away from the Ozark Mountain School District that is composed of Bruno-Pyatt Elementary School, St. Joe Elementary School, the Western Grove Elementary School and the Ozark Mountain High School at Western Grove. Kingston and Oark schools are both isolated.
Act 919 was on the agenda of the May 22, Jasper School District Board of Education meeting.
Superintendent Dr. Candra Brasel said a petition is required having 350 signatures of registered voters or no less than 51% and present it to the board. There's a lot of speculation on how it would work, the superintendent said, particularly how the petitioning school would be financed. "Until the rules and regulations are written, everyone is just guessing." No minimum enrollment is addressed in the law.
Mapping out the former district would be a first step and then determining the value of a mill after consulting with each of the counties involved. An election would have to be held. A new board would have to be elected.
The resulting or receiving school district board of
directors shall review a petition submitted and call an election to be held for the voters who reside within the
school district boundaries of the isolated school before it consolidated with the resulting or receiving district on the issue of an isolated school detaching from a resulting or receiving district at the next annual school election, the law reads.
Directors from Kingston said they don't doubt enough signatures would be gathered.
Dr. Brasel said it will be August before the Act goes into effect. In the meantime the board could help by pulling the map of the school district and determining what the millage value might be for that district, as well as what the school's share of existing debt would be.
