Partners to aid middle schools
8 campuses in LR to benefit
Eight Little Rock School District middle schools are now paired for the foreseeable future with specific businesses and organizations — including two universities, a bank and an international poverty-relief operation — to engage students in real-world projects.
Superintendent Mike Poore joined with leaders of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service and the Forward Arkansas organization Friday to announce the partnership plans.
“What we are really talking about with this concept is allowing projects that are real and relevant to come into a middle school to create a whole different form of engagement for our students,” Poore said, suggesting that an
organization may ask students to work on tasks and needs that the organization really wants done but can’t accomplish in light of other priorities.
“We believe that our kids, in consultation with our business partners, will be able to meet a need … to create a greater good for our community and will advance their own skills. That’s exciting,” Poore said.
Four first-year graduate students from the Clinton School — Connor Donovan, Katherine Barnes, Kirby Richardson and Rachel Cole — have worked as a team this school year, with support from Forward Arkansas, researching best practices in regard to project-based learning. Their research is now in the form of a “toolkit” for the schools and organizations to use to make the best of their partnerships.
Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School, said he hopes the toolkit will be inspiring to teachers and students.
His own passion for project-based learning dates back to his membership on the Little Rock School Board in the late 1980s, which is when he pushed for schools to be built in conjunction with the city’s zoo and airport. That early interest carried over into his work at the Clinton School, where graduate students have completed more than 900 projects in Arkansas and internationally.
“This takes our curriculum to the middle school level,” said Rutherford, who also noted that middle school years are tough for students but that if kids are enthusiastic about learning, the results can be spectacular.
Cory Biggs, associate director of Forward Arkansas, a public-private organization created by the Arkansas Department
of Education, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, called the middle school partnerships a “win for everybody,” and a potential model for the rest of the state and nation.
Cloverdale Middle School is paired with the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium.
Dunbar Middle School is partnering with Heifer International.
Forest Heights STEM Academy will work with the Milton Crenshaw Wings for Dreams organization.
Henderson Middle School is joining forces with the West Central Community Center and its low-power community radio station KWCP, 98.9 LPFM.
Pinnacle View Middle will work with First Security Bank.
Mabelvale Middle is paired with Philander Smith College.
Horace Mann Magnet is paired with Arkansas State University.
Pulaski Heights Middle is partnering with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Poore said the organizations and partnerships are diverse, but putting the same program into every school wouldn’t work. People in each school will decide how the school and their partners can capitalize on the partnerships, he said, be it a focus topic in social studies courses, in the math and science combination of courses, or at a single grade at a school.
Frank Williams, principal at Henderson Middle School, said that West Central Community Center’s unique radio station — complete with its own tower — will be playing “smooth tunes” all day long over the summer.
“But in the fall what you are going to hear along with those smooth tunes are Henderson Middle School students actually putting material on the
radio station,” he said. “Some of that material is going to deal with the problem we face in the 72204 community, which is literacy. Students are going to actually solve the problem of how we can actually address illiteracy. At the same time it will force students to achieve a little bit better in our literacy and reading classrooms.”
Little Rock City Director Doris Wright said she and Williams “had a meeting of the minds” about how the radio station, which originated with help from the John Barrow Neighborhood Association, and the school could counteract negative perceptions and promote the successes of those who live and work in the 72204 ZIP code area of the city.
“The radio station vision was always for our young people to hear themselves on the air and to show us adults what they could do,” Wright said.
Eunice Thrasher, principal at Dunbar International Studies/Gifted and Talented Education Magnet Middle School, said her school’s long relationship with Heifer International will become more embedded throughout the curriculum.
“We’re going to focus primarily on how Heifer operates domestically and abroad,” Thrasher said. “Students will work to identify, understand and evaluate issues of poverty, hunger and sustainability. In science, for example, students will work with representatives from Heifer to hatch eggs from fowl at the urban farm.
“In our social studies classes our students will investigate local and regional issues that have global impact. In our gifted, accelerated math classes students will use their math skills to create data sets to predict incidents and occurrences.”
English and elective courses also will integrate the Heifer curriculum, Thrasher said.