EROS — Kristen Garner, an Arkansas School Board Association staff attorney, met with members of the Ozark Mountain School District Board of Education Wednesday night, April 30 in part to provide board members with necessary training, and to help them prepare for the task of selecting a new superintendent for the school district.
Superintendent Jeff Lewis recently announced his resignation effective June 30 when his current contract expires.
Garner attended the meeting remotely, speaking to the board gathered in the auditorium at the Bruno-Pyatt Elementary School. She prefaced her presentation telling board members they were about to get a crash course on the state's Veterans Preference Law. Board members are required to earn a minimum of 6 hours of training annually. Then she said she would help the board members develop a scoring system (rubric) to evaluate potential candidates for the superintendent's position.
The Veteran's Preference Law was enacted by the state government in 1981. It gives a covered individual a slight competitive edge in being considered for a job. The law was added to cover school districts in 2013.
Covered under this law are:
• Military veteran with at least 6 years of service, an honorable discharge, or currently serving in the National Guard with at least 6 years of service.
• Disabled veteran.
• Surviving spouse of deceased veteran if unmarried at time of application and employment decision.
All must be a citizen and resident of Arkansas and be substantially equally qualified as other applicants.
The veteran must prove their asserted status with documentation and state citizenship.
If a veteran is not hired, the veteran is entitled, upon request, to a written reason why he/she was not selected for interview or selected for hire which would involve disclosing the rubric/criteria and the veteran's score.
Garner explained the preference law is designed to be a tie-breaker between two virtually identical candidates. The veterans preference would give the numerical scoring edge to the one who had prior military service over the other.
Garner emphasized that the board doesn't have to automatically interview anybody just because they say they are a veteran. "It is not a magic word."
The rubric is a screening tool to review applications. It lets the board members agree about what is important to the district before looking at individuals.
The board is entitled to create a screening tool that gives numerical points for the attributes that are important to it, as long as the board also include points for a veteran, disabled veteran or spouse of deceased veteran.
With that information covered, Garner led the board into a conversation to consider its priorities for engaging in the search for a new superintendent.
She began by posing some questions.
