LR school leaders to discuss enrollment, testing in session

The Little Rock School Board and district administrators will take a deep dive into issues around student enrollment at a work session that is planned for today

Also at that session, the board will review plans for giving standardized, end-ofthe year tests to students as required by the state and the federal governments in light of the covid-19 pandemic that has kept a large percentage of district students at home for virtual instruction.

Superintendent Mike Poore proposed the work session late last week at a school board agenda meeting as a way to provide the board with information about how enrollment — which fell steeply this year at the elementary school level — is likely to affect the district’s projected revenue and use of school buildings.

The discussion on how “to retain, attract and re-engage students” for the coming 2021-22 school year after this pandemic year will also explore possible partnerships — such as with home school families — to increase student counts.

“Enrollment is a meaty topic,” Poore told the fledgling nine-member board at its agenda-setting meeting. The board members were elected last November and December after six years in which the state-controlled district had no school board.

The Little Rock district’s enrollment count is 21,977 as of this month, including prekindergarten pupils.

The district’s kindergarten-through-12th-grade count is 20,516 this month — excluding the count of children in the district’s pre-K program that is funded differently than the kindergarten through 12th grades. The k-12 enrollment is down 625 as compared to 21,141 in February 2020, according to a recently created dashboard or bank of student and dis

trict data.

The declines in this covid-19 pandemic year is at the kindergarten-through-fifth grades — down 689 students, including a drop of 170 third-graders, according to the data bank.

Sixth-through-eighth grade enrollment is up 23 and the ninth-through-12th grade count is up 41 students, despite a 107 student drop at the 12th grade.

Out of the District’s 42 campuses, fourteen campuses have shown an increase in student enrollment, according to the data dashboard. Seven campuses have shown a moderate decrease in student enrollment, and twenty-one campuses have shown a significant decrease in student enrollment.

The data includes use rates for the buildings that go as high as 129% for Central High in the past 2019-20 school year, 117% for Fulbright Elementary 114% for Forest Park Elementary.

Other buildings were filled to just over half of their capacity — such as Martin Luther King and Romine elementaries, and Henderson Middle School. Romine is being converted to an early childhood center and David O. Dodd Elementary and Henderson will no longer be used as traditional schools once the now vacant J.A. Fair High becomes a kindergarten-through-eighth grade school in 2021-22.

That closure and consolidation of campuses is expected to save the district some expenses.

Poore told the board last week that he would like it to explore ideas for re-purposing the vacated schools.

The data submitted to the school board to aid in the enrollment discussion includes information on growth in property values within the district boundaries. Over the past 20 years, the average growth in that value — the basis for school tax collections — has been 3.24%. In the same time period, the district’s student enrollment has declined an average 0.78%.

In comparison, the average increase in assessed value within the Bentonville district has been an average 6.31% over 5 years; an average 4.17% in Rogers and an average 3.08% in Springdale.

Poore and School Board President Vicki Hatter said they would like to see opportunities for public comment on the enrollment issues before any final decisions are made.

The upcoming work session is likely to be held online in part because of the threat of winter storms during the week as well as the ongoing threat of covid-19.

While the enrollment decreases were at the elementary level, the district’s high schools have their own enrollment issues and needs for marketing campaigns.

HALL, WEST

Hall STEAM Academy Magnet High and West High School of Innovation — both in their first years of operation — have small enrollments. Hall, previously a traditional high school, is now offering programs with a science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, or STEAM, emphasis.

However, the recruiting period for the new program was hampered at least in part by the onset of the pandemic last spring. The school, where all employee positions were vacated last year and opened to new hires, no longer has an attendance zone.

It did not have enough students this school year to form a ninth grade class in what is meant to be a ninth-through-12th grade school.

School board member Jeff Wood, who advocated for dramatic program changes at Hall while he was chairman of the now defunct Community Advisory Board — told his school board colleagues last week that the courses that are being offered at Hall now are amazing, stellar and exciting.

Wood asked Poore for updates on any draft legislation pending in the Arkansas General Assembly regarding school funding in light of the pandemic.

School board member Ali Noland asked that the board be able to tour Hall relatively soon. She asked if students can continue to register for enrollment next year at Hall and Poore said, “absolutely.”

School board member Norma Johnson asked for any available data on where former district students have gone. And Michael Mason, another school board member, asked for data on enrollment at Metropolitan Technical Career Center.