Little Rock School District board denies ESOL partner Felicia Dodson’s grievance

The Little Rock School District Board of Directors on April 28, 2025, voted to deny a level-3 personnel grievance filed by Dr. Felicia Dodson, the district’s ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) secondary partner.

The grievance, presented at a public hearing, challenged district assignments that Dodson said effectively required her to teach students and perform record-keeping tasks she contends were outside her job’s essential functions. The board president moved and the board seconded a motion to deny the grievance; the transcript records a voice vote of “aye” and the chair announced the motion carried.

Why it matters: The case centered on how the district assigns ESOL duties when schools lack a dedicated English-language development (ELD) teacher. Dodson said she was reassigned to work directly with students and to complete detailed biweekly check-ins and spreadsheets that limited her ability to perform partner-level instructional coaching. The district argued those tasks were legitimate program needs and consistent with the ESOL secondary partner job description.

At the hearing, the district’s attorney, Kai M. Eddings, framed the administration’s position as background and compliance-based. “Back on September 24, [a] formal workplace complaint… was resolved,” Eddings said, and he described the November 19, 2024, letter that reassigned Dodson as an administrative action and the subsequent January 24, 2025, letter that reinstated her to the partner role.

Dodson’s attorney, Austin Porter Jr., told the board that Dodson’s grievance filed in February 2025 asked the district to let her “perform the essential function of her responsibilities” without being directed to teach or take on duties she says differ from other ESOL partners. Porter said Dodson had been limited to work in only two of the secondary schools she was expected to serve and had been asked to produce frequent “check-in” reports about student contact and duration of support.

District witnesses said the contested assignments were tied to discrete program needs. Shauna Spriggs Loring, assistant superintendent for Network 1, described the ESOL partner role as “a liaison between district schools and the district ESOL department, providing support to English language learners and English language learning departments and services in our schools,” and she pointed to job-description items such as “site-based embedded instructional support,” “model[ing] exemplary practices,” and “monitoring student progress.”

Karen Henry, ESOL director, said the Dunbar Middle School work that drew the most contention involved a push-in support model to help roughly 28 identified English learners at that campus. Henry said the district asked Dodson to provide in-class support with core teachers and to record visits and observations in a coaching dashboard and related spreadsheets so the district could document program implementation and plan staffing for the next school year.

Dodson testified that even after she was reinstated to the ESOL partner title in January 2025, much of her assignment amounted to duties she considered instructional or clerical — pulling small groups, compiling school-level spreadsheets and twice-monthly check-in reports — and that those tasks limited her ability to provide the network-wide coaching she expected in the partner role. She described a period in which she worked two full days at a single school and spent other days completing district spreadsheets rather than visiting the multiple schools assigned to her.

The hearing record includes two district personnel letters: an 11/19/2024 letter reassigning Dodson to an ESOL teacher/interventionist role and a 01/24/2025 letter reinstating her to the ESOL partner position. The hearing record also includes a February 5, 2025, email from Assistant Superintendent Shauna Spriggs Loring to Dodson (cc: ESOL director Karen Henry) asking for documentation of “what students were seen,” dates and classes, duration of support and what support was provided. The district presented a running assignments document and a coaching dashboard the administration said partners use to record site visits and interventions.

Board members asked about timeliness and process. The record shows disagreement about whether the district met all internal timelines at the level-1 and level-2 stages; Dodson’s filings indicate she proceeded to a level-3 hearing after unsuccessful attempts to secure an earlier response. The hearing officer instructed the board that its options were to sustain, deny, or partially sustain the grievance and to craft remedies if it sustained any claim.

After executive-session deliberations, the board returned to public session and approved a motion to deny Dodson’s grievance; the chair announced the motion carried following a voice vote.

The board did not announce a public remedy, and no roll-call vote tally with member names appears in the hearing transcript. The district’s exhibits entered into the record include the November 19, 2024 reassignment letter, the January 24, 2025 reinstatement letter, the February 5, 2025 email about documentation, and the district’s ESOL check-in and task documents.

What’s next: The hearing record indicates the district will retain its internal documentation (coaching dashboard, spreadsheets and calendars) as evidence of partner activity and program needs. The board’s denial leaves the district’s assignment approach intact unless the district or the employee pursues further remedies outside the board process.

Sources: Public level-3 grievance hearing before the Little Rock School District Board of Directors on April 28, 2025; administrative exhibits introduced at the hearing; sworn testimony of Dr. Felicia Dodson, Shauna Spriggs Loring (assistant superintendent), Karen Henry (ESOL director), and attorney statements from Austin Porter Jr. and Kai M. Eddings.