Some odds and ends to start the day:

* A NEW TEACHING JOB FOR TIPPI MCCULLOUGH: There are school administrators happy to employ Tippi McCullough, the long-time teacher at Mount St. Mary Academy who was forced to resign after her marriage to her partner Barbara Mariani in New Mexico. Mariani tells me that Jerry Guess, superintendent in the Pulaski County Special School District, employed her to teach English as a second language classes as a bridge to a permanent job. That job has developed. Nancy Rousseau, principal at Central High School, has hired McCullough to begin teaching pre-AP English to ninth graders Jan. 6. There’s a certain resonance in an open door at Central High School for someone who faced discrimination.

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* THE HONEYMOON IS OVER: That new Little Rock School District page listing FOI requests? It’s not up to date. It doesn’t include a voluminous request from the Little Rock Education Association, submitted this week. It’s a broad request ranging from administrative payroll and bonuses to land and equipment purchases to Superintendent Dexter Suggs’ expenses to costs of some ambitious school construction and restructuring plans, particularly to create academic magnets of a sort at Geyer Springs and Forest Heights schools. One interesting request is for:

Any and all documents that have been “borrowed”, including those from which items have been adapted, from other school districts for use in the Little Rock  School District by Dr. Dexter Suggs in the 2013-14 school year, including the right to use such items (copyright waivers, permission for use, etc.) from appropriate  person the district(s) from which they have been “borrowed”.

* WHERE’S WALDO?: The morning paper includes the list of businesses and individuals delinquent on personal property tax payments. Familiar names include somebody with the same name as a former legislator famous for complaining about taxes. Circumstantial evidence that it’s the same guy is that a business he owned last time I checked is also on the list. Spot anybody else of note?

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* CHUMP CHANGE: A reader did the math on the proposed $2.65 million fine of ExxonMobil for the tar sands spill in Mayflower. On last year’s profit of about $45 billion, he figures it’s about 31 minutes of Exxon’s time.

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