Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Haas Hall reports progress on diversity front to board
Haas Hall Academy continues working to diversify its student body, a school representative told the state Board of Education Thursday.
The open-enrollment charter school, judged by U.S. News & World Report the best public high school in the state for six straight years, focuses on preparing students for college.
State education leaders, however, have raised questions for years about imbalances in the school’s demographics.
Haas Hall serves nearly 1,000 students in grades seven through 12 at its four campuses in Fayetteville, Bentonville, Springdale and Rogers. The latter two campuses opened this fall.
Haas Hall is more diverse than ever, according to a written report school officials prepared last month.
Heather Holaway, executive director of marketing and communications, told the board the racial breakdown of Haas Hall’s students closely resembles the region’s demographics and
she’s proud of the school’s recruiting practices.
Current outreach practices involve television and newspaper advertisements, handouts and fliers, direct-mail marketing, social media ads and using “brand ambassadors,” Holaway said.
Haas Hall’s most diverse campus is the one at The Jones Center in Springdale, where 61 percent of students are white. Twenty percent are Hispanic, 7 percent are two or more races, 6 percent are Asian and 3 percent are black, according to the report.
That’s located in the Springdale School District, where about 34 percent of students are classified as white. Another 47 percent of Springdale’s students are Hispanic, 13 percent are native Hawaiian or Pacific islander, 2.4 percent are black and 1.7 percent are Asian, according to Arkansas Department of Education data.
In July 2016, the state board asked Haas Hall to compile a quarterly report on its diversity and partnership initiatives. The board later that year decided an annual report would be sufficient.
One of the biggest things the school identified as a need in order to increase diversity was transportation. The school has bought bus passes and bikes for students and provided campus shuttles, Holaway said.
“So far we’ve not had one situation where we could not find a transportation solution for a scholar to get to Haas Hall,” Holaway said.
Haas Hall provided more than 700 hours of free tutoring last year and instituted a number of methods of serving low-income families, including financial assistance for such things as uniforms, books and extracurricular activities, according to the school’s report.
Fitzgerald Hill, a board member, challenged the school to achieve better results from its efforts to diversify.
“Those specific goals you have, a game plan to move the ball down the field, to make first downs are important,” Hill said. “Those are specific things I’m looking for as a board member.”
The board voted unanimously to require Haas Hall to provide an update on the diversity matter a year from now.
Martin Schoppmeyer, Haas Hall’s founder and superintendent, said after the meeting the school is working as hard as anyone for diversity.
“We aggressively recruit all scholars to Haas Hall,” Schoppmeyer said. “I think we’ve made excellent progress.”
Schoppmeyer hopes publicity surrounding the school, combined with the school’s outreach efforts, would convince anyone to give the school a chance.
“I think Haas Hall would be a great experience for anybody,” he said.