Group weighs rezoning proposal

FAYETTEVILLE — City officials will take aspects of the College Avenue rezoning proposal back to the drawing board but leave plenty of time for public comment after the Ordinance Review Committee makes any revisions.

The committee, consisting of half the City Council, set a timeline for further meetings on the topic. The proposal went through three rounds of public comment during Planning Commission meetings in April and May that prompted several revisions. The City Council left the item on its first reading earlier this month.

Discussions on how to rezone College Avenue began after the city last year took on a project to renovate the stretch from Maple to North streets with wider sidewalks, trees, lights and signaled crossings. City officials hope to make the area more pedestrian friendly with a mix of commercial and residential uses. New development would bring buildings closer to the street rather than having parking lots and curb cuts cover the landscape.

The current proposal would create a zoning district, urban thoroughfarelight. The district would limit building height to four stories, which emulates the maximum 45 feet allowed in adjacent residential districts. Any multi- family developments would have a density cap of 18 units per acre.

Several residents of the nearby WashingtonWillow and Wilson Park

School District officials want to have 1,000 students in the eighth through 12th grades by the 2018-19 school year. They planned to add seventh- graders that same year, said Megan Slocum, associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

But parents inquiring about enrolling younger children pushed district officials to get permission from the State Board of Education to add seventh-graders this fall, Slocum said.

“We have kids who are ready for something different,” Slocum said. “It’s our job to provide it.”

Slocum anticipates space for 25 to 100 seventh- graders, and applications will be accepted on a first- come, first-served basis, she said.

The program best suits students who are creative and like hands-on learning experiences, Slocum said. The program is designed for students to develop skills to self-direct their learning, persevere, communicate, work with their peers and to be innovative, she said.

Students also follow a personalized learning plan and are expected to work at the teacher’s pace or better, she said. Multiple classes meet in large open spaces. Students work in groups to finish projects. Students complete courses based on “competency,” or mastering content and demonstrating knowledge.

Seventh-graders will have classes in a pod within the building, Slocum said.

Schools in different parts of the country are offering “competency- based” education, including down to kindergarten, said Denise

Airola, director of the Office of Innovation for Education at the University of Arkansas. Students in those types of programs have to develop skills to succeed, including self-management and goal-setting.

Students are active in the learning process, she said. Parents attending the meeting may want to ask about how coursework translates into credits and grades, the safeguards in place for students who start to fall behind, what support is provided to parents and where the program offers flexibility, Airola said.

“Ideally in these types of environments, the path to success is clear, the learning outcomes are really relevant to students and students are aware of what the criteria are for moving on,” Airola said.

The application requires the names of the student and parent, a parent email address and phone number, and the name of the school the student is scheduled to attend in the fall, whether it’s one of the four middle schools in Springdale or another school.