A source in the Delta reports that the long-troubled Lee County School District is in deeper turmoil thanks to a board split that divides on racial lines. He reports:

The Marianna School Board, in a racially divided vote, demoted Superintendent Wayne Thompson to the transportation department and Comptroller Betty Sanders to the Food Service Department.  Thompson and Sanders are both white.  The four board members voting to demote them were African-American.  You know about the struggles with finances and the teachers strike there last spring.  They are scheduled to meet again today according to my sources.  I was told that Clyde Noel, who used to coach the football team at the high school and was currently coaching the junior high  is the interim superintendent.

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Little Rock and Helena-West Helena are not alone, sad to say.

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