2020 Arkansas Code
Title 6 - Education
Subtitle 2 - Elementary and Secondary Education Generally
Chapter 20 - Finances
Subchapter 19 - Arkansas Fiscal Assessment and Accountability Program
§ 6-20-1910. State board actions
(a) After a public hearing, the State Board of Education shall consolidate, annex, or reconstitute the school district in fiscal distress to another school district or school districts upon a majority vote of a quorum of the members of the state board as permitted or required by this subchapter.
(b) The state board has exclusive jurisdiction to determine the boundary lines of the receiving or resulting school district and to allocate assets and liabilities of the school district.
(c) The decision of the state board shall be final with no further right of appeal except that a school district may appeal to Pulaski County Circuit Court pursuant to the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act, § 25-15-201 et seq.
(d) [Repealed.]
(e)
(1) If, by the end of the fifth school year following the school district's classification of fiscal distress status, the school district in fiscal distress has not corrected all issues that caused the classification of fiscal distress, the state board, after a public hearing, shall consolidate, annex, or reconstitute the school district under this section.
(2) The state board may grant additional time for a public school or school district to remove itself from fiscal distress by issuing a written finding supported by a majority of the state board explaining in detail that the public school or school district could not remove itself from fiscal distress during the relevant time period due to impossibility caused by external forces beyond the control of the public school or school district.
(f) Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education or the state board from taking any of the actions listed in § 6-20-1909 or this section at any time to address a school district in fiscal distress.
