Conway School Board Voters Guide 2023: Bill Milburn
Here’s the responses to our Conway School Board Voters Guide from School Board candidate, incumbent Bill Milburn, who currently represents District 5 and is running for re-election. The school board election is set for May 9.
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All the candidates say they’re focused on “education for our kids.” So, if elected, what are your plans to help improve our reading scores?
I am not qualified to design the curriculum in any area. We have to rely on those in the classroom to make recommendations for change.
At one “Lunch and Learn” a presentation was made to the board concerning the current curriculum. The teachers involved have a plan that implemented this year which shows growth in the right direction. The teachers stated that it was likely a 3-year process before an evaluation could measure how effective it was being.
Why so long? This is a simple breakdown; there’s a lot more to it. First grade deals with shapes and letter recognition. Second grade starts into phonics and individual letter sounds. Third grade gets into combining sound into words and words into sentences.
They have implemented targeted assistance to help individual students to improve to class-level skills. They also have an evaluation that is given more often to measure the rate at which they are improving toward goal.
FOIA laws currently handicap the board’s ability to gather input from the front line teachers. If two board members go together to talk with teachers, we have to notify the news media 2 hours in advance and record the conversations. If I go by myself and talk to the teachers, it is against the law for me to email their input to another board member. There is legislation pending that may pass before this survey is published.
Editor’s Note: The legislation that Milburn is discussing is state Representative Mary Bentley’s HB1610.
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What role(s) should public school have in children’s lives, other than basic education?
Many things go into enhancing “basic education”. A hungry student can’t learn as well as one who is fed. A student who has fears will not do as well as one that is secure. A student who feels excluded will not flourish like one who feels like they are apart. So environment, security, culture and a long list of things combine to create the best learning environment.
Basic education does not include political, religious, or social indoctrination. Students should be taught “HOW” to think, not “WHAT” to think. The BASIC process should include total transparency with parents as to what and how their kids are being taught.
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If elected, how would you ensure that all children, whether heterosexual or not, are comfortable in bathrooms and when undressing, etc. at school?
I was not on the board at the time the policy was voted on, but I was at the meeting and have closely studied the situation and concur with the board’s decision.
The restroom policies that have drawn so much attention came out of concerns of students and parents. About 1% of students may have had concerns about using the restroom of their birth gender. About 99% may have had concerns about sharing a restroom with the opposite birth gender.
The reasonable accommodation (compromise) was to provide a single-person, private restroom for any student who was uncomfortable for any reason using the larger restrooms.
I was provided a study by the parent of a trans student and within the study there were three occasions where it indicated a private restroom was a suitable alternative. HB1156 is in the state Legislature at this time, out of committee with a DO PASS from both chambers. It would essentially make a version of the Conway policy into state law.
Editor’s Note: The Legislature has passed HB1156; it’s now Act 317.
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Do you agree or disagree with the Board’s handling of FOI issues? Why or why not?
The School District should comply with the FOIA laws at all times. The public’s right to know is extremely important. I believe they have made a good faith effort to do that.
The board does not handle FOIA issues. We are generally advised that a request has been made to the school district and asked to provide any relevant communications, documents, text and emails, etc. that we may have on private devices concerning the request.
To my knowledge, all FOIA requests have been complied with. The law requires a response within three working days. Where possible, the requested information is provided within that time period and, if logistically not possible, a notice is to be given stating the time it will take to comply. I don’t have the numbers, but I believe that follow-up response giving a time period is sometimes slow coming, especially if it is an instance where information is not available.
The records retention policies have been expanded to ensure that items are kept available according to their classification. For example, an email stating “the junior high boys basketball team won last night” doesn’t require a long retention period but an email about an incident on campus may require a much longer retention period. The school should improve in that response time to better comply with the law. The Legislature is currently considering SB380 that clarifies response time.
Editor’s Note: After we received Milburn’s responses the Legislature has now passed SB380; at publication time the bill is awaiting the Governor’s signature.
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What is your position on the recent controversy over sexually inappropriate books in the school libraries? Would you do anything differently? If so, what and why?
This issue was raised by a parent challenge and nothing the board went looking for. It was handled by policy. Once again, I was not on the board when that decision was made but I was present at the meeting.
I have since reviewed the two books and concur with their removal. When the board asked a school employee to read sections of the book out loud, she substituted the first letter of some words, apparently because she was uncomfortable saying them out loud. If a doctorate level employee is uncomfortable saying a world out loud, that is a strong case that the words are not age-appropriate.
The US Supreme Court in PICO ruled in favor of keeping a book because the school board stated they were “un-American and Un-Christian” and that you could ban an idea. They went on to state that school boards could restrict educational material (books) on the grounds that they were not relevant to the curriculum or because of their graphic nature.
In this instance, [board member] Dr. [David] Naylor stated that his vote on the books would be the same if they were about heterosexual relationships because of how graphic they were. I agree with Naylor that, because of the graphic language, I would have removed a similar book about heterosexual acts.
