Board OKs LISA school in Rogers

Charter school expected to start classes in 2022

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday voted 6-0 to ratify the state Charter Authorizing Panel’s approval of a LISA Academy charter school campus in Northwest Arkansas.

The Education Board has the authority to either accept the charter panel’s decisions or vote to hold its own hearing on an open-enrollment charter school proposal before making a final decision.

There was no opposition from surrounding school districts to the charter plan expressed at the Education Board meeting, and Education Board members had few questions about the proposal.

The newly approved plan calls for a campus in Rogers for kindergarten through 12th grades, starting with the elementary grades in the 2022-23 school year.

It will be the second campus in Northwest Arkansas to be operated by the open-enrollment LISA charter organization that got its start in Pulaski County. LISA Academy is operating a school in Springdale it acquired from a different charter organization.

The new campus will have an enrollment cap of 950 students. It will raise the LISA Academy system’s overall enrollment from cap from 3,432 to 4,382.

The system already operates a kindergarten-to-12th-grade program in Little Rock in what will grow from three to four buildings in the next school year, another kindergarten-through-12th-grade program in two buildings in Sherwood, and a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in Springdale that LISA Academy began operating this school year.

Planners for the Rogers school have identified 20 acres at 428 S. Horsebarn Road as a site for the school accessible to residents in both Rogers and Bentonville.

Plans call for KLS Leasing to purchase the property, immediately construct the first of two planned buildings on the site and lease that to the charter system. A second classroom building for the middle and high school will be constructed as enrollment grows over time.

The proposed rent for the site would be 12% of annual state money, including categorical funding.

KLS Leasing and its agent Kathy L. Smith are affiliated with the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville, which is a longtime proponent and financial contributor to open-enrollment charter schools, such as LISA Academy.

Luanne Baroni, assistant superintendent and director of communications for the 15-year-old charter system, told the state charter panel last month a Rogers-based campus “clearly meets the criteria for our expansion.”

Planners for the school sought a place where student population exceeds 10,000, she

said. Other criteria included a limited selection of school types such as other charter schools and private schools; an overall growing population with racial and ethnic diversity; proximity to a college or university; and nearby industry that requires workers trained in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

School planners do ‘t anticipate reaching the proposed 950-student maximum enrollment for the site until 2033.