Panel urges: Pull Little Rock school’s charter

An Arkansas Department of Education panel voted Wednesday to revoke the charter issued to Covenant Keepers College Preparatory School because of governance, financial and academic problems.

The 6-1 vote by the state Charter Authorizing Panel will now go to the state Board of Education for final action on the future of the 160-student middle school campus in Little Rock. The taxpayerfunded school, which opened in 2008 and is now at 5615 Geyer Springs Road, must have the charter to operate. A year ago, the state renewed the school’s charter for three years.

The Education Board can either vote to accept the authorizing panel’s decision to revoke the charter, effective at the end of this school year, or make a decision after conducting its own hearing on the school.

The Education Board will decide at its May 11 meeting whether to review the panel’s decision. Any subsequent hearing on the school would be held at the board’s regular meeting in June or at a special meeting.

The Education Board also will decide at its May meeting whether to review the Charter Authorizing Panel’s 5-1 decision Wednesday to put Rockbridge Montessori Charter School, also in Little Rock, on probation for a range of problems that came to light after state authorities learned earlier this year that no special-education services had been provided to pupils for weeks after a teacher resigned in October.

If the Education Board agrees to the revocation of the Covenant Keepers’ charter, it will be the first involuntary revocation of a school charter since 2011. In March 2011, the board revoked the charters issued to Little Rock Urban Collegiate Charter School for Young Men and Osceola Communication, Arts and Business School.

Stacy Smith, the state Education Department’s assistant commissioner for learning services and a member of the Charter Authorizing Panel, made the motion Wednesday to revoke the Covenant Keepers’ charter after questioning Superintendent Valerie Tatum about her $138,000-a-year salary and whether Tatum is a member of the board of the school’s nonprofit sponsoring agency, the City of Fire Community Development Inc.

Smith cited the school’s governance and financial problems, which included ending balances last school year of a negative $110,000 — along with school’s labeling by the state as being in academic distress because fewer than half of students scored at proficient levels on state tests over multiple years.

“I’m telling you this doesn’t pass the smell test,” Smith told Tatum about her being listed as the registered agent for the nonprofit City of Fire on a website list of state corporations — despite Tatum’s statements to the contrary. Other members of the Tatum family are also listed as being on the board for the nonprofit.

“It is not uncommon for an entity that sponsors a charter to have a superintendent or principal on its board of directors,” Smith said. “But that board should be making decisions, looking at the money and knowing what is being sent to the school. In your testimony you have clearly stated more than once, ‘I am not on the board. I have nothing to do with the board. If we need money I ask,’ and you gave the name Diane Jackson.

“But everything on file says you are on the City of Fire board [of directors] and that you are the registered agent, and it’s just not matching up for me.”

Smith said her concerns about the school started with Tatum’s salary, which is among the top half of superintendent salaries in the state despite the small enrollment in the school.

“How is it possible for you to have that type of salary? Heck, I want that job. That would be a great raise for me,” Smith said. Smith earns about $112,573, according to state records.

Tatum said that the salary is the result of her long hours of work — sometimes 16 to 18 hours a day — as an advocate for the school in southwest Little Rock and as the driving force behind the school’s improved academic achievement. A total of 50.896 percent of students scored at proficient this past spring on state tests, up from 42.986 percent of students in 2015, according to information provided by the charter school.

“Eight points — that’s Dr. Tatum,” Tatum said of herself and predicted the percentages will increase again after testing is completed this month. “Yes, it looks pretty on paper, but I will tell you, ma’am, I am working hard.”

Smith responded that Covenant Keepers teachers didn’t get the same kinds of pay increases as Tatum and “it’s not fair.”

Tatum said her teachers are hardworking. “I’m in the classroom just like they are,” Tatum said. “My day doesn’t end when their day does. I have the baby Covenant Keepers that I have to keep alive.”

Greg Rogers, the Education Department’s assistant commissioner for fiscal and administrative services and a member of the Charter Authorizing Panel, told his panel colleagues that the Covenant Keepers’ negative balances would have resulted in a traditional school being placed in the state’s fiscal-distress program. State law doesn’t provide for that classification for charter schools, he said.

Tatum said the school is projected to end this school year with as much as $90,000 in positive balances despite having to repay the state some $212,000 that was initially distributed on the basis of incorrect data. That projection prompted questions from Rogers about how the school will realize year-end balances in light of the repayment, increased expenses and no new revenue.

Tatum said budget cuts in supplies and the receipt of grants from the sponsoring City of Fire Community Development Inc. will help the the school cover its expenses.

Cindy Smith, the Education Department’s coordinator of fiscal services, said the year-end balances are likely to be smaller than Tatum’s estimate but not in the negative.

The school has projected revenue of $1.013 million this year.

Members of the panel questioned Covenant Keepers education board members Noland Buckley and Caron Lott-Dunn about their knowledge of the school, its operations and its finances. The school’s board is separate from the City of Fire board.

Ivy Pfeffer, assistant commissioner for teacher effectiveness and licensure, as well as a charter panel member, noted that until earlier Wednesday morning, criminalbackground and mal-treatmentregistry checks for several Covenant Keepers staff members were not in the state’s records but the problems were corrected by midmorning.

Pfeffer told Tatum that “it was concerning” that the average experience of teachers on the staff is one year, and that the lack of teaching experience makes sustained academic improvement difficult to achieve.

Panel members voting for revoking the charter were Smith, Rogers, Pfeffer, Mark Gotcher, Bobby Lester and Eric Saunders. Lisa Haley, special- education division manager in the Education Department, voted against the motion, saying she would have preferred to put the school on probation.

The Charter Authorizing Panel did vote 5-1 to put Rockbridge Montessori School on probation with requirements to report to the state Department of Education’s charter school office every 90 days on its special-education services, its governance and its finances.

The charter panel will do another full review of the school within a year or sooner if the reports to the charter office make an earlier review necessary.

The charter school, at 108 W. Roosevelt Road in Little Rock, serves about 150 students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

The charter panel had conducted a hearing on the school in March but tabled any decision until Wednesday’s meeting to give the school leaders time to make progress on correcting a range of concerns.