Educators directed dozens of questions at state education officials on Wednesday about a new state law that gives some isolated schools a path to separate from larger districts.
Arkansas Department of Education staff were quick to caution, though, that the law gives them only a limited role to play in those separations.
Linda Kitchens was one of roughly 30 attendees at a question and answer session hosted by the state Department of Education about the law, Act 919 of 2025. She, along with other educators and even the House sponsor of the legislation, said much remains to be known about how best to fulfill the intent of the law without disrupting students.
“I came out with a lot more questions than I have answers,” said Kitchens, who chairs the steering committee to separate Umpire Schools from the Cossatot River School District.
Umpire, like many small, rural districts, was combined with a neighboring district years ago under a 2003 law that sought to consolidate districts with fewer than 350 students. Act 919 of 2025 allows for reversing some of those consolidations.
The new law allows consolidated or annexed school districts to detach from the districts that previously absorbed them and instead form an “isolated” school district. Umpire, Timbo, Rural Special and Kingston schools are among the eight consolidated or annexed districts the department said are able to detach under this law.
Department chief of staff Courtney Salas-Ford said officials called the meeting because “we’ve received lots and lots of questions” about how detachment under the new law would work. However, she emphasized that while the department would try to provide guidance it has little role in overseeing such transitions.
Salas-Ford pointed to the brevity of Act 919, which lays out the process for a district to detach but does not explicitly mention the Department of Education.
“If you’ve seen the law, you know there’s not a lot to it,” she said.
Act 919’s sponsor, Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, said during last year’s regular session that her bill was meant to address problems created by the school consolidation law passed more than two decades ago, Act 60 of the second extraordinary session of 2003.
Consolidation or annexation often sparks conflict between the smaller district and the larger one into which it is absorbed, Irvin said. She pointed to Umpire as an example of a school threatened with closure by the district that took it in, the Cossatot River School District.
Under Act 919, an isolated school can detach from the district that resulted from or received it if the school submits a petition to the district’s school board stating the intent to reestablish the original school district. The petition must include the signatures of at least 350 registered voters who reside in the isolated school’s boundaries or at least 51% of the registered voters who reside within those boundaries. An election on the question of detachment would then be called, according to the law.
Before taking audience questions, Education Department officials gave presentations on various topics for districts to consider before a potential detachment, such as finances, facilities, nutrition and special education.
While the department initially focused on questions that were submitted before the session and those submitted digitally as the session took place, educators soon began raising their hands and asking questions out loud.
Department staff repeatedly emphasized the importance of an agreement that both the detaching district and the originating one must come to before a separation can take place. They also said schools would need to act quickly if they hoped to detach and be allowed to operate in time for the 2026-27 school year.
“It’s almost like a divorce,” Greg Rogers, chief fiscal officer for the department said. “So you have to get that divorce settlement agreed upon as soon as you can.”
Kitchens said her school’s ability to reach a satisfactory agreement with the Cossatot River School District was one of several areas that left her “a little apprehensive.”
“I think some of these schools are probably going to come to an agreement with each other very quickly,” she said. “Since our relationship is not really good, I’m not sure how our agreement is going to be. It could be contentious.”
Umpire Schools is working with a lawyer to draft their agreement, according to Kitchens.
Cossatot River School District Superintendent Samuel Slott said he supports the creation of a path for schools to better serve their immediate communities. But that path shouldn’t come “at the expense of the existing school district,” he added
“I don’t think that should come from an existing school district that’s already been paying the bills,” Slott said. “Why should it be the burden of the existing school district to fund the new one?”
Sheila Mitchell, principal of Timbo High School, said she was worried about the need for isolated schools to have parents reapply for free and reduced lunches. About 80% of students in Timbo schools qualify for free and reduced lunch, according to Mitchell.
While that will “definitely have a negative impact on our students and our community as a whole,” Mitchell said she had no intention of reversing course on isolation.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “We just have to figure out how to make that work.”
‘STILL A LOT OF QUESTIONS’
Rep. Steven Walker, R-Melbourne, said he attended the question and answer session because he had seen “a lot of information and misinformation spreading around the communities that are interested in this.”
Act 919 was only meant to establish a “framework” for isolated schools to detach, said Walker, the House sponsor for the law. He said he wanted to learn what discussions were taking place among educators about the process, in case the law needed to be amended during the next regular legislative session in 2027.
One of the possible needs Walker said he saw was for a mediator to resolve disputes between isolated schools and their larger counterparts.
“There’s still a lot of questions that I think didn’t get answered today that I’m hoping will down the road,” he said.
Walker said the department is limited in what it can do to aid isolated districts because of the way the law is currently written. “At the end of the day, we’re the ones that’ll have to address it if we hit roadblocks going forward,” he said.
With support from the ADG Community Journalism Project, LEARNS reporter Josh Snyder covers the impact of the law on the K-12 education system across the state, and its effect on teachers, students, parents and communities. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette maintains full editorial control over this article and all other coverage.
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