LR schools chief forms public service team to engage middle- schoolers
Little Rock School District leaders are turning to the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service for a recipe on project- based learning that will draw on community organizations such as the city’s zoo to engage middle school pupils.
“Middle school is where we need to do something different,” Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore told a Clinton School team of four graduate students. Poore said the middle schools lose more students than any other level to competing charter and private schools or to schools in surrounding communities.
“They need a shot of a new way to create student engagement,” Poore said of the district’s eight middle schools.
The schools already have organization and business partners that want to provide real- world learning opportunities for students.
Besides the Little Rock Zoo that has teamed up with the district’s Henderson Middle School, some of the partners include First Security Bank, Heifer International, Dr. Milton P. Crenchaw Aviation & Training Academy, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Nabholz Corp., Entergy and Arkansas State University, Associate Superintendent Daniel Whitehorn said.
“What we need to do is create a systems approach so
all of these parties know how to interact in a thoughtful way, where they are not overstepping on each other and they are producing an outcome where there is greater student engagement,” Poore said. “The simple idea is if we create projects from these companies that are real projects, things that they are really considering but just don’t have time to do, and they give them to our kids and let them tackle it, and they come in as technical advisers throughout the project, the kids will create great products and the business community will benefit from it.”
Cory Biggs, associate director of the Forward Arkansas organization that is facilitating the work of the four- member Clinton School team, noted that the district has both a Volunteers in Public Schools program and a Partners in Education program. He said the hope is the middle school project will be something “that is bigger than anything that has ever happened before.”
Forward Arkansas was established as the result of a partnership involving the Arkansas Board of Education, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation of Little Rock and the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville. Its purpose is to help prepare Arkansas students in prekindergarten through high school for success in college and careers.
“What we are talking about here is something that is really transformative, that really transforms the culture of each school over the long term to give each middle school and all of the students who attend there a sense of identity and purpose around something that connects to the community,” Biggs said. “Something that they can get excited about doing over the course of several years. Something that sparks a certain career path that they want to go down.
“Even if the school partner is the zoo and the students don’t want to be zookeepers, they are still learning valuable skills that can apply in a real- world setting across anything they decide to do, and they are getting those skills at an earlier age,” he added.
The Clinton School team is made up of Katherine Barnes, Rachel Cole, Connor Donovan and Kirby Richardson.
In response to questions from the team, Poore said he envisions the middle school projects to be part of the students’ academic day, although a summer “boot camp” for the middle school grades also was discussed.
Ideally, the initiative will result in higher student test scores, improved student attendance and accolades from the business community, Poore said. He also he wants the initiative to be sustainable over time.
“I don’t want one- and- done,” he said.