Community-school hires set in Little Rock

LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock School District will hire four community school coordinators to administer support services for students and their families, officials said last week during a virtual town-hall meeting, as conversations between the district and the city continue about how they will implement a community-based education model.

Community schools will make available wraparound services to meet students’ needs inside and outside the classroom, including social services and after-school activities, in hopes of becoming neighborhood “hubs.”

Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said last year that he wanted to implement a community schools model at the Little Rock district’s poorest-performing schools and said during his State of the City address in January that he wanted to expand such a model to the entire district.

Darian Smith, the district’s executive director of elementary education, said Thursday night that the coordinators will be the single point of contact for wraparound services at their assigned schools, acting as a bridge between students and families and organizations, such as corporations or nonprofits, that provide supportive services.

“They’re reaching out to find spokes to connect back to the hub,” Smith said during the virtual town hall.

The four new coordinator positions, which the district posted on its website Thursday afternoon, aren’t yet associated with specific schools in the district, though they will be at the elementary level. The city and district plan to announce which Little Rock School District locations will be in the first cohort of community schools in the coming weeks.

Jay Barth, the city’s chief education officer, said coordinators will undergo training in the fall and will be involved in assessing the needs at the four schools, with the city and district expecting to kick off the first programs in the spring.

Barth said the plan was initially to start programs in the fall, but the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March led to the plan being delayed by about a semester.

The salary range for the coordinator positions is listed on the district’s website as $27,492 to $48,480 annually.

During Thursday’s town hall, Barth explained that the city and district are pursuing a community schools model based on four pillars: providing individualized wraparound services that meet the needs of students; expanding high-quality, out-of-school learning opportunities; creating active family and community engagement with the school operating as a community hub; and establishing collaborative, leadership-involving school leaders, teachers, parents and community members.

He added there may not be funding for every school in the Little Rock district to hire a coordinator, but that other schools could eventually integrate partnerships and services to become like community schools even if they don’t have the formal designation.

Barth said he and other officials made trips to Shreveport and Albuquerque, N.M., to evaluate community schools models in those places.