Cabot School Board Announces Called Meeting For Feb. 15

The Cabot School Board will hold a “Called Meeting” on Tuesday, February 15th, immediately following the board's regularly scheduled 6:00 p.m. meeting in the Central Administrative Office boardroom at 602 N. Lincoln Street.

Arkansas law requires school boards to call a meeting when petitioned by at least 50 electors. On January 23, 2022, the Cabot School District received a verified petition certified by the county clerk. The four agenda items for this meeting are taken verbatim from the petition:

1. “School Curriculum, including but not limited to, pornographic and sexually aggressive books available in our district libraries”
2. “School Handbook Policies, included but not limited to, allowing sexual disparity between male and female dress code”
3. “School Board Policy change that does not allow for time each meeting to allow parents/and or students to air their grievances according to Amendment 1, of the US Constitution.”
4. “Request for a letter from Cabot School Board condemning the letter written by US AG claiming parents who question the school board are “criminals” for voicing their opinions through emails or person. Opposing views is not violent. Raised voices is not violent. It is protected under the 1st Amendment.”

While Arkansas law requires the District to host this meeting, the statute does not require that a specific procedure be followed during that meeting.

Arkansas Code Annotated § 6-13-619 discusses the different types of school board meetings and Title 6 of the Arkansas Code contains the laws for education in this state.  It does not mandate public participation in school board meetings. The petitioners state that Arkansas Code Annotated § 14-14-109 should govern, but this statute only applies to county quorum courts and the committees and boards they create. While the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act states that school board meetings must be public, the Arkansas Attorney General has stated in Opinion 93-052 that “[t]he right to attend a meeting…does not carry with it the right to participate in it.”

Therefore, on Friday, January 28th, the Cabot School Board asked the petitioners to write a one-page statement in support of each petitioned agenda item that would be read publicly by a District employee and added to the official record of the meeting.  

Additional statements specific to the petitioned agenda items may be submitted by patrons and will be provided to the board members.  These statements can be emailed to Karen Davis at karen.davis@cps.k12.ar.us by noon on Monday, February 14.

In a Cabot Public Schools’ news story posted on the district website on November 11, 2021, we previously responded to each of the four concerns. As stated, we will consider policy changes, including our dress code policy and a policy to add public participation during school board meetings, in our annual policy review at the end of the school year. 

As always, the Cabot School District encourages dialogue with our students, staff, parents, patrons, and stakeholders. It is important to note that any community member can contact board members at any time to voice their concerns. Board member emails and phone numbers are accessible on our district website and can be found here.