Dear Arkansas Board of Education Members:

This letter is a plea. It is a plea for you to help the residents, the parents and most especially the children of Little Rock.

Others can better express the concerns and the potential solutions better than I, so I’ll be brief. Public schools in Little Rock are a tremendous issue! This is not new… LRSD is not only failing students, it is failing all of Little Rock. People in Benton, Bryant, Cabot, Conway and other communities around Little Rock hope you do nothing to change LRSD. The chaos of public schools in Pulaski County over decades has been the #1 driver in the growth of those communities. Make no mistake, they are all fine communities with great merit. But their growth has been accelerated by Little Rock School District’s negative reputation.

In addition to driving families from Little Rock, LRSD has created an economic segregation of public school students vs. private school students. Surely you are aware of the tremendous percentage of students in Little Rock in private school to avoid the public schools.

As a a parent, as a resident of Little Rock, and as a small business owner in Little Rock, I plead with you, I beg you, to please, please make the right choice for public schools in Little Rock. Remove the school board and take control of LRSD.

It appears to me that the future of the residents, the parents and the children of Little Rock is in your hands. Please be good hands.

Most sincerely,

Jeff Yates, CLS, CRX
ARK Commercial
& Investment Real Estate