6 apply to open charter schools

None pitched for Pulaski County

Six organizations — including two from outside the state — have applied to open independently operated public charter schools in 2017-18 in Fayetteville, Pine Bluff, Marion, Redfield, Paron and Lockesburg.

The six applications were sent this week to the Arkansas Department of Education, where they will be evaluated by its staff before going to the Arkansas Board of Education, which has the final say on approval.

The number of applications is half that of the 12 schools originally envisioned by charter-school planners for the school year after next. Planners had to submit one-page letters in early March telling of their intentions to apply for charters. The letters of intent are a prerequisite for the actual applications. Planners routinely send letters of intent and then decide against applications.

None of the applications made this year are for schools in Little Rock or in Pulaski County although four such campuses were included in the earlier letters of intent. More than half of the state’s existing 22 open-enrollment charter schools are in Pulaski County.

Scott Smith, the executive director of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, which provides financial and academic support to charter schools and rural school districts, said Friday that there is still interest in new charter schools in Pulaski County.

“There were some letters of intent for this market, but I think they failed to materialize primarily due to facilities and some other logistic issues,” Smith said. “I would expect them to be looking back at the market at some point in time.”

The state Education Board on March 31 approved expanding the LISA Academy and eSTEM charter school systems by four schools and nearly 3,000 seats all within the Little Rock School District over the next few years.

Smith said those expansions may have affected the application numbers this month.

“I think there was a host

of activity with regard to Little Rock and Pulaski County just prior to the new application cycle,” he said. “There were expansion requests and charter renewals and there were some new schools coming out of those. I think most of the Pulaski County/Little Rock/North Little Rock attention took place just prior to this new application cycle.”

The six latest charter applications will be considered by the Education Department’s Charter Authorizing Panel on Aug. 17-18, Alexandra Boyd, charter-school program manager for the state Education Department, said Friday. The panel is made up of top-level staff members at the department.

The state Education Board will decide whether to review the panel’s action on each application at its Sept. 8 meeting, Boyd said. If the Education Board decides to review a charter application rather than immediately accept the panel’s decision on it, the review would be done at a hearing in October.

While six open-enrollment charter schools are being proposed, only five can be approved for the 2017-18 school year, according to the Education Department.

The number of charters available in a year is calculated annually based on the formula in Arkansas Code Annotated 6-23-304. The law allows for an automatic increase of five charter schools each time the number of approved open-enrollment charters is within two of meeting the existing limitation or cap.

The state’s cap on open enrollment schools, set in 2015, is 29. Currently there are 22 open-enrollment schools and two more have been approved for opening in 201617, making the total 24. That leaves five charters available to be awarded to schools for 2017-18, according to the Education Department.

Among the six applications is one for Fayetteville Classical Academy from Responsive Education Solutions with headquarters in Lewisville, Texas.

Responsive Education operates four state- approved charters in Arkansas and more than 60 others in Texas. The Arkansas schools are Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy in Bentonville, Quest Middle School of West Little Rock, Premier High School of Little Rock and Quest Middle School of Pine Bluff.

The Fayetteville Classical Academy, if approved, would eventually serve as many as 688 in kindergarten through 12th grades at a site at 3155 N. College St. The site, which will cost $19,876 a month in the first year of operation and increase to $31,002 a month in year two, was previously used by Haas Hall Academy charter school. It is owned by the Paradigm Co.

Mary Ann Duncan, now of Texas, is listed as the interim superintendent for the campus. She is a former charter school program manager at the Arkansas Education Department.

Duncan said Friday that Responsive Ed was motivated to apply for a charter for a Fayetteville campus in part because the Classical Academy in Bentonville — about 30 miles away — has been well received by families. The waiting list for that school as a couple of weeks ago was in excess of 500 students, she said.

“We do think there is a good pool of interest from parents in the area,” Duncan said. “We are willing to pursue that interest. The bottom line is providing great educational, academic options for students.”

The Fayetteville Classical Academy’s mission is “to provide a well-founded and distinctly 21st century classical education that promotes intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and virtue, preparing students to make a meaningful contribution in a free society.”

Socratic questioning, inquiry-based instruction, project-based learning, technology-assisted learning and direct teaching would all be components of the school’s program, according to the application. Latin would be taught in middle school as a springboard into high school where students would explore careers in health sciences, engineering and computer science.

Hands-on music and art courses in the elementary grades would become performance and studio arts courses in the middle and high school grades. Character education would be infused throughout the grades.

Charter schools are provided waivers to some state laws and rules as a way to promote innovation in their programs. The Classical Academy is seeking waivers to teacher and administrator licensure laws and rules employee compensation laws, start and ending dates for the school year, and other regulation that has become common among charter schools.

Celerity Global Development of Los Angeles is another out-of-state entity that submitted an application this week.

Smith of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center said that his organization recruited the group, which has schools in California, Louisiana and Florida, to consider an Arkansas campus because of its success in working in communities where students and other schools have struggled.

The Celerity Global Charter School would serve up to 600 students in kindergarten through 12th grades in the Dollarway School District in Pine Bluff. The school’s planners will construct a building for the school on vacant land they would lease at 4809 Dollarway Road in Pine Bluff.

“While we incorporate a diligent focus on student achievement outcomes across core academic areas in our programs,” the school’s mission statement says, “our school will seek to develop the ‘whole child’ via engaging programs in the arts, technology and physical education. The mission of the sponsoring organization is to provide engaging challenge education programs to underserved communities.”

Connections Charter School, sponsored by Aretha Coleman of West Memphis, would serve up to 150 pupils in kindergarten through sixth grade within the Marion School District. The school’s focus would be on teaching critical thinking and problem solving in literacy and math, and on discovery and research in science and social studies. The school would feature small teacher-to-pupil ratios intended to result in fewer distractions for teachers and students.

Lockesburg STEM Academy, sponsored by JBH Collegiate Academy Public Charter School, would provide a science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, program paired with a liberal arts program for up to 360 students in kindergarten through eighth grades. Michelle Burgess of Suffolk, Va., is listed as the chief executive officer of JBH Collegiate Academy. The school’s mission is to provide specialized supports and innovative instruction with an emphasis on acquiring skills in the STEM subjects.

Paron Charter School, sponsored by Paron Community Trust, would serve up to 200 students in kindergarten through 12, starting with 120 in kindergarten through grade five at the Paron School, 22265 Arkansas 9. The school’s program would focus on the development of life skills while promoting technology and environmental stewardship. Jamie Mullins of the Paron Community Trust is the contact for the school plan.

Redfield Tri-County Charter School, sponsored by the Redfield Tri-County Charter School board of directors, would serve up to 400 students in fifth through 12th grades. The school to be located in Redfield in the White Hall School District would prepare students for careers and or postsecondary education with mentoring and job-shadowing opportunities. Character values and community service projects also would be features of the school. Amanda Kight is the contact for the sponsoring organization that has applied for the charter in the past.

“We do think there is a good pool of interest from parents in the area. We are willing to pursue that interest. The bottom line is providing great educational, academic options for students.” Mary Ann Duncan, interim superintendent for Fayetteville Classical Academy