Education Department announces LEARNS Act team leaders

The state Department of Education has released the names of the people leading the work groups that will recommend rules and policies for the implementation of the LEARNS Act.

The work groups’ recommendations will go to the secretary and the state Board of Education for consideration before being reviewed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office.

Each group will focus on a specific topic: school safety; early learning; parental empowerment; teaching and learning; educator workforce and career readiness. according to a memo from the agency.

The leads are:

School safety Agency: Stacy Smith

Team: Jerry Keefer, Jason Weatherly

Early learning Agency: Stacy Smith

Team: Tonya Williams, Dawn Jeffrey, Lori Bridges

Parental empowerment Agency: Ivy Pfeffer

Team: Darrell Smith

Teaching and learning Agency: Stacy Smith

Team: Kiffany Pride

Educator workforce Agency Ivy Pfeffer

Team: Karli Saracini

Career readiness Agency: Ivy Pfeffer

Team: Ross White

The agency received about 1,300 applications for the work groups, with about 1,000 individuals submitting applications. According to Pfeffer, about 300 of the submissions were duplicate applications that may have come from people who applied for more than one group.

Applicants can only be selected for one group, however:

The teaching and learning work group received the greatest number of applicants, with 524, followed by educator workforce, with 226, according to the LEARNS website, learns.ade.arkansas.gov. School safety saw the fewest applicants, with 97.

The agency hopes to have work groups of up to 10 people each, Pfeffer, deputy commissioner for the Education Department, said during a state Board of Education meeting on Friday.

Smith, who is also a state deputy education commissioner, said during the board meeting that some topics, such as teaching and learning, will probably have several work groups formed “underneath that individual umbrella.”

Pfeffer said she anticipates the first work groups will be announced and get going in May. The workforce and parental empowerment groups are likely to be among the first to begin, according to the deputy commissioner.

The rest of the groups will probably be formed during the summer, she said.

Experts from different areas of education will likely be involved in the work groups as well, according to Pfeffer.

She also said that education cooperatives are also being encouraged to create similar work groups to review the implementation process, as some aspects of LEARNS won’t get underway until the 2025-26 school year.

“This is something that’s going to be ongoing for some time,” she said.