School closing when charter lapses in June

LR’s Covenant Keepers, foundation at odds on deal

The 114-student Covenant Keepers Charter School in southwest Little Rock will shut down permanently when its state charter expires at the end of the school year, unless another charter operator succeeds in plans to replace it.

Arkansas’ Charter Authorizing Panel voted 6-0 on Tuesday to accept the voluntary nonrenewal of the charter for Covenant Keepers, which serves pupils in grades six through eight at 5615 Geyer Springs Road.

The panel also heard and accepted reports from Capital City Lighthouse Lower Academy in North Little Rock and Blytheville New Tech High School on steps those charter schools are taking to improve the F grades they each received from the state for the 2017-18 school year. The school letter grades are based largely on 2018 results from ACT Aspire tests in math, literacy and science.

City of Fire Community Development Inc., the sponsor of Covenant Keepers since the school’s opening in 2008, declined to apply for renewal of a state charter, which is necessary for a school to operate and receive state funding.

City of Fire and another charter school organization, the Washington, D.C.-based Friendship Education Foundation, had attempted to reach an agreement in which the school’s charter would be transferred — with state approval — from City of Fire to the foundation.

The Friendship foundation — which already holds state charters for the soon-to-open Friendship Aspire Academy in Little Rock and a newly opened charter academy in Pine Bluff — has been managing the Covenant Keepers campus this year through a memorandum of understanding with City of Fire and Valerie Tatum, who is the founder and original director of the school.

But Joe Harris, the chief operating officer of the national Friendship organization, told the seven-member Charter Authorizing Panel on Tuesday that, despite the memorandum of understanding for this year, negotiations on the proposed transfer of the charter for the 2019-20 school year and beyond were unsuccessful.

“The reason for the breakdown was chiefly due to slow responses and a delay in City of Fire producing documentation to support additional debt that was included in a new debt schedule presented to Friendship,” Harris said.

The foundation did not have sufficient time to evaluate City of Fire’s newly reported debt of more than $127,000, he said, adding that the newly reported debt would be in addition to previously reported claims for back rent and accounting costs — all of which could become the responsibility of the foundation through the charter transfer.

Tatum told the panel that she retired from the school in October and that her organization no longer wanted responsibility for the school, although she would like to see it continue for students. Tatum said she believed it was Friendship’s responsibility to apply for the transfer of the charter.

She also said she believed that revenue was available to the foundation to meet the school’s costs.

With both entities declining Tuesday to apply for the charter renewal and transfer, the state panel had no charter renewal application before it on which to act.

The current charter will expire at the end of the fiscal year, June 30.

Harris said in an interview after the panel vote

that his organization will move promptly to acquire state approval to operate a school in place of Covenant Keepers so as to serve students already at the school and others.

He said he anticipates applying to the charter panel and ultimately to the Arkansas Board of Education for an amendment to one of the foundation’s two already approved school charters to operate the third campus.

By applying for an amendment to a foundation charter rather than a transfer of Covenant Keepers, existing state charter, the foundation won’t be responsible for the original operator’s debts.

Alexandra Boyd, the Education Department’s former director of charter schools and still a department employee, has said the state cannot be held liable for a defunct charter school’s outstanding debts. The state, however, can liquidate a school’s assets to be used toward payment of the bills, she said.

The decision by City of Fire against renewing its charter for Covenant Keepers brings to an end a school operation that was frequently in fiscal and academic jeopardy with the authorizing panel and the state Board of Education.

In 2012, for example, the school was placed on probation for financial issues. In 2013 and in 2014 the school was designated as being in academic distress and in multiple years after that the school was called on frequently to respond to concerns about academic progress and financial stability.

Regarding the Blytheville New Tech High School, a 608-student district-run conversion charter school, and the 213-pupil Capital City Lighthouse Academy in North Little Rock, the charter authorizing panel stopped short of any punitive actions.

Ivy Pfeffer, deputy education commissioner and panel chairman, was among the panel members who questioned whether the project-based learning component of the curriculum distracts from core academics at Blytheville High where fewer than 10 percent of students scored at desired “ready” levels on the English/language arts section of the ACT Aspire test.

School and district leaders defended project-based learning as important and beneficial to graduates.

They cited student test fatigue, high teacher turnover and their failure to monitor indicators of student and

school success as reasons leading to the high school’s F grade.

Revised graduation and achievement goals, greater teacher support and training — particularly in the science of reading — as well as the use of the Northwest Education Assessment interim exams to monitor student preparation are among the steps being taken now to raise the letter grade.

The panel asked for a follow-up report to be made in December.

Leaders at the Capital City Lighthouse Lower Academy said pupils exceeded the school’s annual achievement goals in 2016 and 2017, but midyear changes in faculty and leadership last school year contributed to lower achievement, Lighthouse Academy of Arkansas’ Executive Director Lenisha Broadway Roberts told the panel.

Since then, personnel have stabilized at the campus, she said, and the school is using the Summit Personalized Learning initiative that relies on problem solving and projects to promote student learning and retention. The school is also using Lighthouse regional staff to support campus teachers, Roberts said.