Education Matters: Task Force to Keep Redfield Open Going to ADE
By: Deedra Wilson
Updated: January 9, 2013
In Education Matters ...
It's been a long fight between White Hall School Board Members and the community of Redfield.
But the school, after 75 years will close its doors next school year.
A task force created to try and save the school says while the battle may be over, the war is not.
They say they have come to a conclusion of why the schools doors were shut, but they are not done trying to change the boards decision, which they say sickened them.
"It was like a death, it was like a death, said Linda Banks, a Task Force member."
Banks is a retired school teacher and started first grade in the building that is now Redfield Middle.
"We just went into panic, explains Banks."
The reaction when the White Hall School Board voted Tuesday night to shut down Redfield Middle, citing increased costs in insurance, expenditures and cuts to federal programs.
Banks says the closing, which would affect more than one hundred students, is more than just financial.
"Dr. Larry Smith, Superintendent of White Hall Schools, stated that if we bring the Redfield kids to White Hall we will only have to take about 800 kids from Dollarway, says Banks."
Some in the community are outraged students will have at least a 20 minute drive one way to white hall.
"I don't think it's fair, it takes a lot to commute and then you ask for more tax dollars to commute, says Theresa Mothershed."
"Look at the price of gasoline, it's gonna go up it isn't gonna go down, so what's gonna cost them to bus the kids down there, said Mack Hall."
"When you take a school out of the community, you kill the economy, and it is a long way to Little Rock and a long way to Pine Bluff, added Banks."
The task force says it will go to the Arkansas Department of Education tomorrow and ask to be removed from the White Hall School District.
We also spoke to the Superintendent, who says trying to take Redfield students over Dollarway students, is not true and he says that it is a state decision, on how many students will be moved over not a board decision.
