Some seven days ago, the Fayetteville School District Board of Education seemingly had its hat handed to its members in surprising and somewhat embarrassing fashion. The University of Arkansas, potential buyer of the high school's 40-acre campus, took its $ 50 million-and-not-acent-more offer off the table.
To paraphrase Chancellor G. David Gearhart, the state's landgrant institution has grown tired of waiting for the local school board. Clearly, Gearhart and Co. are used to a more streamlined method of operation than a public school system can muster.
Still, there are varying theories about what's really going on here. Some believe the university still wants the property but wanted to maintain a position of strength in negotiating and push the school district to act. Others ponder the possibility that the school district was preparing to reject the $ 50-million offer over the still unresolved - at least publicly - issue of leaseback payments, so the UA attempted to save face by acting first.
Still others wonder if the school board was ever serious about selling, or if its May vote to offer the campus to the university for $ 59 million was just fulfillment of a political necessity before moving ahead on the current site.
All of these are theories that few people can attest to as fact, but when events transpire as oddly as this exchange has, such speculation isn't too shocking.
Perplexing from a public standpoint is the fact that the Fayetteville Board of Education in May set a 30-day deadline for university officials to respond. Then, once the UA Board of Trustees did respond, the school board appeared to take a far more lackadaisical approach to the deal. Somewhere, Gearhart got the distinct impression that the UA's offer might be left to languish for several more months.
So what's the school board to do ?
That depends entirely on whether it can achieve a consensus on the kind of future the board wants for Fayetteville High School. If members of the school board seriously believe - as its appointed committee recommended - that the best option is to build a new high school on Morningside Drive, they must develop the specific terms for which they would sell the current site to the UA. Sure, the UA has essentially put on the ol' sales-pitch pressure, saying," What can we do to get you into that new high school today ? "Gearhart was specific about saying he remained open to consideration of a purchase if the school district delivered some acceptable terms.
On the other side, if this school board in all reality isn't comfortable pressing the issue and isn't convinced it wants to create a new school at a new location, then the board needs to accept the UA's withdrawal as an opportunity to get focused on the goal it does want to achieve.
Seeing an end to pursuit of a sale and the evaporation of plans to build a great new high school elsewhere will certainly be a disappointment. But disappointing, too, is a process that makes the school district appear as though nobody ever taught its leaders about decision-making.
Based on past votes, we know the school board is not interested in two high schools and is not interested in building on district land along Deane Solomon Road. We know that the board wants ninth-graders to be part of the high school. And we know that the board set a price of $ 59 million for the high-school campus, although we can't be sure a sale would be consummated, even at that price. Given existing economic conditions and likely voter sentiments, we can also surmise that absent the sale of the FHS campus, the path of renovating and / or constructing facilities on the current campus will involve a lot of compromises to severely reduce the level of new taxation needed. The facility that exists today is the result of past compromises. It seemed 2008 would be the year that Fayetteville High School students of the future were going to be beneficiaries of an uncompromising pursuit of top-notch high-school facilities for the next several decades. Did the community lose that with last week's announcement of withdrawal by Gearhart ?
- Northwest Arkansas Times
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