The Central Arkansas DSA Labor Working Group is currently in the middle of its second email campaign to the Little Rock School Board. Last month we spoke out against the decision to privatize the custodial staff at JA Fair K-8

and about the lack of teacher and community input on the plans for Hall High School and the West School of Innovation. Currently, we are working to get the board to re-introduce its commitment to non-discrimination into its policy manual.

At the outset of the Trump administration, the district removed its commitment to non-discrimination from its policy manual. The newly-elected school board has the power to fix this but has chosen not to.

We believe strongly that all the awful things going on in Arkansas can be attributed to the fact that currently there is no coordinated movement large enough to offset the influence of capital.

Powerful interests like Wal-Mart, the Stephens firm, and the Arkansas Realtors Association control our state and are happy to let right-wing extremists run amok in our government as long as it turns a profit for them.

While elections and voter registration can be an effective organizing tool, they do very little without a strong backbone on the ground that can leverage labor and popular support to demand a change to the status quo.

Things may seem hopeless but we have the power to change our state! And it starts at the local level. We can learn from our predecessors in the Civil Rights Movement, SNCC, the Black Panthers, and the labor movement.

They made change because they were organized. And they started in their communities and worked up. We can’t fix everything right now. But we can focus on the areas where we have power and use our victories to build towards the future.

Our plan for the LRSD is being carried out with input from teachers from across the district. We support the rank & file and the newly elected leadership of the union. Their demands are our demands. Their fights are the community’s fights.

There are a ton of ways you can be involved in the campaign for the LRSD. Send us a DM if you want to learn how. We can’t keep complaining about Arkansas on social media unless we are involved in an effort to fix it.

If you want to send an email in solidarity, email to the addresses listed below. Then you will find some of the emails we’ve sent to the board during this campaign and the previous one.

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], CC [email protected]