LR, 2 PB charters win panel’s favor
3 schools, 2 others still need final OKs
The state’s Charter Authorizing Panel on Thursday gave preliminary approval to three open-enrollment charter school plans — one in Little Rock and two in Pine Bluff — bringing to five the number of new schools receiving panel support this week.
Five is also the number of charters available for the 2018-19 school year under the state law that sets a loose cap on the number of the taxpayer-supported schools, which are operated independently of traditional school districts. There are 24 charter schools or charter school systems in the state, currently, plus a charter school for adult learners. Half of those are in Pulaski County.
All five newly endorsed plans — plus the four that were not supported by the authorizing panel — will go to the Arkansas Board of Education in September for final action, said Alexandra Boyd, the state Department of Education’s charter school program manager.
The state board has the authority to accept the charter panel’s decisions or hold its own hearing on one or more of the plans. Those
hearings — which would occur in October — can be done on the board’s own initiative or at the request of a charter school planner or an affected traditional school district that would be in competition with a charter school for students and state funding.
Endorsed by the panel Thursday were:
Friendship Aspire Academy-Little Rock, proposed by the Friendship Education Foundation of Washington, D.C., for 600 pupils in kindergarten through fifth grades at an as yet undetermined site in southwest Little Rock, starting in 2019-20.
Friendship Aspire Academy-Pine Bluff, proposed by the same organization, for 480 pupils in kindergarten through fifth grade, starting with 160 in kindergarten and first grade in the 2018-19 school year at a former church building at 3911 S. Hazel St.
Southeast Arkansas Preparatory High School, proposed by the Southeast Arkansas Preparatory High School Inc., for 220 students in ninththrough-12th grades in 2018-19 in the former Ridgeway Christian School, 1501. W. 73rd Ave., in Pine Bluff.
Joe Harris is the national executive director of the nonprofit Friendship Education Foundation charter management organization, which has schools in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Baton Rouge, said Thursday that Little Rock is of significant historic importance in the education of minority students.
“Being here would be an honor,” Harris told the authorizing panel after the reference to the 1957 racial integration of Little Rock’s Central High.
The three charter schools preliminarily approved this week for Little Rock locations — the Friendship school, Einstien Charter School of Little Rock and Scholar Made Achievement Place — represent 1,795 new charter seats in kindergarten through grade nine although not all those seats would be available at once because the schools would start with a few early grade levels and then add more grade levels over time.
The new seats would be in addition to the 2,382-seat expansion of the eStem Public Charter Schools system, which is in the midst of expanding from three schools to five, including a new elementary school and a new middle school that are to open in 2018-19 on Shall Street in east Little Rock.
Mike Poore, superintendent of the state-controlled Little Rock district has objected this week to each of the proposals for charter schools in Little Rock, arguing in part that Little Rock already has too many available elementary seats as the result of traditional, charter, private and home schools and through interdistrict school choice.
In a letter to the panel Thursday, Poore noted that the district, except for its west and northwest sections, has lost hundreds of students for all types of schools between 2000 and 2015. Poore also argued that the Little Rock district showed increases in student achievement on state exams this past spring compared with the previous year, including in its schools in areas to be served by the new charter schools.
He also said innovative programs aren’t unique to charter schools. He pointed to Stephens Elementary as one example. That school, with support from First Security Bank, is home to a bank for pupils who use it in lessons on personal finance and to hold their award and incentive money.
Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, a Little Rock resident, submitted a letter in support of the Friend- ship Aspire charter school plans, saying that the Friendship schools in Washington, D.C., have a track record of success, having been placed among the national’s top 25 charter schools by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation for student achievement and the closing of academic gaps between student groups.
The Friendship foundation was invited to consider sponsoring schools in Arkansas, Harris said, by the Walton Family Foundation of Little Rock, a national proponent of charter schools and the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, a nonprofit organization supported by the Walton Family Foundation to to promote quality education, particularly in rural school districts and charter schools.
An organization known as Friendship Arkansas would be the actual holder of the two charters. Friendship Arkansas would have a management agreement with the Friendship Education Foundation to replicate the foundation’s other schools.
The demographics of students in both Pine Bluff and Little Rock mirror those of the students in the foundation-backed schools, which date back 20 years, Harris said. The system’s 12 campuses enroll 5,200 students, 94 percent of whom are black, 99 percent of whom qualify for subsidized school meals because of family poverty and and 14 percent of whom receive special-education services.
The Friendship schools in Arkansas would be liberal arts schools with rigorous instructional programs designed to move all students to grade-level mastery of their lessons regardless of socioeconomic status and prior achievement.
The schools would operate from 7:30 a.m. to as late as 6 p.m., 190 days per year, compared with the traditional 178-day school year. Classrooms would be equipped with interactive white boards and laptop computers. School bus transportation would be provided for those who live outside walking distance of their school
While the school planners are purchasing a specific site in Pine Bluff, Friendship foundation officials told the panel, it will take as long as 20 months to identify and prepare a site for the Little Rock school, hence the 2019 opening date.
Thelma’s Beauty Academy in south Little Rock has been identified as a possible site for serving students in the 72204, 72209 and 72211 ZIP codes, Harris said. Two vacant schools in the North Little Rock district have also been toured.
Panel member Naccaman Williams of Springdale said in voting for the Little Rock school that “the application demonstrates a comprehensive education plan and excellent experience that will provide an excellent educational option. I do encourage more community outreach from the applicant.”
No one spoke Thursday in opposition to either the Friendship Aspire or the Southeast Arkansas Preparatory High School plans in Pine Bluff.
Dedrick Sims of Aurora, Colo., chief executive officer of Sims-Fayola Foundation and a Pine Bluff native, presented the Southeast Arkansas high school plan Thursday on behalf of the sponsoring board of directors that is chaired by Pat Hart and includes among its members former Pine Bluff Mayor Debe Hollingsworth.
The school will offer a college preparatory program with an emphasis on the subjects of science, technology, engineering and math. Project-based learning and internships in the STEM fields would be incorporated to help students — each with computers — understand the relevance of their schoolwork to careers. Instruction would be a blend of traditional classroom and online teaching.
Frequent assessment of student progress and the reteaching of lessons are part of the school’s design. Students who fail to meet their yearly achievement goals during the 185-day school year would be assigned to a mandatory summer program.
One of the goals of the school, said Sims, who is a consultant to the school’s sponsoring organization, is “to send 100 percent of our scholars to college without the need for remediation.
“It pains us to pay in college for what students should have learned in high school,” he said.
Panel members had some qualms about the school’s plans for providing services to gifted students and to students who might typically require an alternative education program.
“The educational plan was informative and addressed the academic and behavioral needs of the community,” panel member Jeremy Owoh said in supporting the school. “I do hope that the school will address all student needs with the required student services.”
Panel member Mike Wilson commended provisions in the plan that call for staff members to visit the homes of their students.
“The application showed impressive community support, and the program was well explained,” Wilson said in voting for the plan.
Also Thursday, the charter panel voted 4-1 to endorse changes in the length of the school day and school year for Ozark Montessori Academy in Springdale.
The panel voted 5-0 in support of altering the name of the Springdale School of Innovation to the Tyson School of Innovation and giving the Springdale district leaders the flexibility to decide in what years they will add elementary school grades to the School of Innovation, which now serves seventh through 12th grades.
The school was previously approved for kindergarten through 12th grades with certain grades to be added in certain years. The amendment would allow the school the flexibility to change the years in which the grades are added.
In a letter to the panel Thursday, Poore noted that the district, except for its west and northwest sections, has lost hundreds of students for all types of schools between 2000 and 2015.