School district in LR no longer biggest in state
It’s surpassed by Springdale in early enrollment counts
There’s been a change at the top.
As it stands now — and if early 2018-19 school year numbers hold up in the coming weeks and months — the distinction of being Arkansas’ largest school district has shifted from the Little Rock School District in central Arkansas to the Springdale School District in the northwest part of the state.
Springdale’s enrollment earlier last week was 23,480 in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Little Rock’s enrollment as of Aug. 24, the 10th day of school, was 22,644 for the same grades. That’s a difference of 836 between the two districts.
Jim Rollins, the 36-year superintendent of the Springdale district, said Friday that he was surprised by the ranking but also that he is well aware of the growing population in his region and of the district’s annual enrollment growth. That growth is now typically about 300 students per year after earlier being as many as 1,000 a year.
“It has never been our goal to be the largest district in Arkansas,” Rollins said. “It has always been our goal to be the best we can be. As an educational team, our focus is always on quality and continuous improvement.”
“Increased growth means more opportunities for our great teachers to serve more kids and build partnerships with their families,” Rollins said. “The Springdale educational team continues to show its ability to personalize teaching and learning and to even better serve all students.”
While the Springdale
district’s count routinely increases and is expected to continue to trend upward, numbers have routinely declined in the Little Rock district, which has been operating under state control without a locally elected school board since January 2015. The state took control of the district because of chronically low student test scores at some of its campuses.
The district’s Aug. 24 enrollment had 1,099 fewer students than that of the 10th day of school in 2017 and 2,060 fewer than the 24,704 recorded in August 2016.
The loss of nearly 1,100 students could cost the Little Rock district as much as $3 million in state aid in 2019-20, Kelsey Bailey, the district’s chief financial officer, said Friday.
Student enrollment affects facility planning in both districts.
Rollins said the Springdale district is constantly renovating and updating its older schools and planning for the future, which will include new elementary schools in 2021 and 2023. Before that, the district’s Don Tyson School of Innovation will increase its capacity from 1,000 to 2,000 by 2020.
Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore is hosting a series of community forums this month to propose and solicit ideas for combining existing schools or altering their uses, which would have the effect of streamlining district operations.
McClellan and J.A. Fair high schools in Little Rock will be combined into the new Southwest High in 2020. Poore has proposed converting the existing McClellan and Fair campuses into kindergarten-through-eighth-grade schools, which would change the uses for Henderson and Cloverdale middle schools as well as various Little Rock elementary campuses, such as Romine, Dodd, Watson, Baseline, Meadowcliff and Wakefield.
The first forum will be held at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at McClellan High in Little Rock.
Three of Pulaski County’s four traditional school districts — Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special — are seeing fewer students, which is a predictor of state funding cuts in future years.
The declines in all but the Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District come at a time when the number of independently operated, publicly funded charter school campuses in Pulaski County has increased.
Three charter school campuses — which will eventually have a combined capacity of more than 1,800 students — have just opened. They add to nearly a dozen previously existing charter campuses. All three of the new campuses — eSTEM East Village Elementary and Junior High and ScholarMade Achievement Place — are located within the boundaries of the Little Rock School District but can draw students from throughout central Arkansas.
The August student counts in school districts are only preliminary and tend to inch up until after the Labor Day holiday.
School districts throughout the state will record the official enrollment for the 2018-19 school year on Oct. 1. State funding to school districts, however, is not calculated based on that Oct. 1 number but on the average enrollment over the first three quarters of the previous school year. Cuts in state funding to the districts would not occur this school year but rather in the 2019-20 school year.
The state’s system of funding schools guarantees that every school district have at least $6,781 per student — a combination of local and state money — with the state making up the difference between the minimum $6,781 and what the district can generate from local property tax revenue. The Little Rock district receives about $2,725 per student in state aid.
In the Little Rock district, eight elementary schools saw drops of more than 50 students, including Stephens Elementary, which lost 127. The others were Bale, Brady, King, Williams, Watson, Wakefield and Rockefeller.
Pinnacle View Middle School this year has become the district’s largest of eight middle schools, with 838 pupils. Central High continues to dwarf the other four high schools with its 10th-day count of 2,477.
According to preliminary data for the other three traditional school districts in Pulaski County:
The North Little Rock School District’s 10th-day enrollment was 8,877, including 608 pre-kindergarten pupils. That is down 176 from a total of 9,053 students in 2017.
The Pulaski County Special School District’s eighth-day pre-kinder-garten-through-12th-grade enrollment was 12,259 at its 25 campuses. That was down 384 from its eighth day count in 2017, which was 12,643. The district has continued to monitor the student count. On the 12th day of school this year — last Tuesday — enrollment had grown by 54 to 12,313.
The Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District’s count was 4,248 on Tuesday, the 12th day of school, counting pre-kindergarten children. That is up 40 from the 4,208 recorded in the preceding year.
Charles McNulty, the Pulaski County Special district’s first-year superintendent, said the establishment of new charter
schools creates competition, but he expects the school district enrollment to grow over the course of the school year if history is an indication.
“Certainly new is new — that always draws attention,” he said about the new charter schools, “but I believe our professional staff and our schools are here to support the community for the long haul.”
The financial effect of any drop is delayed by at least a year, McNulty also said.
“That gives us time to respond efficiently with still quality instruction. It’s a nice design in Arkansas,” he said about the funding system.
McNulty, members of the Pulaski County Special district School Board, and Arkansas Department of Education leaders conferred last week about finances in the district, which was under state control from 2011 to 2016 because of fiscal distress.
Cindy Smith, fiscal and support services coordinator for the state agency, cautioned the board that the stagnant property values in the district coupled with enrollment declines translates to a drop of about $500,000 in funding for this new school year. Additionally, the district is seeing an increase in its bond debt service from $10 million a year to $14 million.
District leaders estimate having ended the 2017-18 school year with about $20
million in carryover funds but also expect to draw from those reserves this school year in part to meet shortfalls in the costs of constructing the new Mills University Studies High and the new Robinson Middle School.
Smith advised the district to save money by not replacing employees who resign or retire. That is easier than cutting employee benefits or closing campuses. She also urged that the board be careful in raising money by issuing bonds, as that will increase the district’s annual debt payments.
The Pulaski County Special district’s elementary enrollment was 5,853 on the 12th day of school, while the secondary school enrollment was 6,460.
At the secondary school level, Sylvan Hills High School’s two campuses had a total of 1,451 students. The district is in the midst of significant building expansion at Sylvan Hills’ main campus.
Enrollment at the newly constructed Mills University Studies High School was 603 last week. At the new Mills Middle, there were 411 students. Mills Middle — at the site of the old Mills High — was established as the replacement school for Fuller Middle, which was demolished over the summer.
Robinson Middle School, another newly constructed school, had a 12th-day count of 520.