LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock School Board members are poking around at the topic of constructing a middle school in northwest Little Rock, trying to decide how best to tackle it along with other facility needs.

Residents in the fast growing part of the city have cried out in School Board meetings and in various social-media outlets for a new middle school that would serve at a minimum the pupils who attend the new Roberts Elementary School.

In only its third year of operation, Roberts Elementary - at Cantrell and LaMarche Drive - is at capacity with an enrollment of 899. It has become the district’s largest elementary school.

The nearest middle schools to Roberts Elementary are Forest Heights Middle, which is about 8 miles and 17 minutes away at University Avenue and Evergreen Drive, and Henderson Middle, about 7 miles and 17 minutes away.

School Board member Jody Carreiro suggested at an agenda-planning meeting last week that a place be reserved on the board’s Feb. 28 meeting agenda for a discussion on land acquisition for one or more schools.

The board eventually acquiesced to board President Dianne Curry’s call for a work session on the matter in March - but not before Superintendent Morris Holmes assured the board that he and his staff have been committed to the west Little Rock middle school project ever since he became superintendent two years ago.

He said he and his staff have been anything but lackadaisical in their approach to it and to a possible replacement campus for McClellan High in southwest Little Rock.

A lot of information has been gathered and the administration is ready to move forward on the matter, Holmes said, but added that facilities is an issue in which the board has much discretion.

“As superintendent I get a lot of calls and I get a lot of conversation ... and I report to the board. This is an area where the board has a tremendous responsibility and prerogative, and not the administration,” he said.

Gary Newton, a parent whose children attend Roberts Elementary and who leads the Arkansas Learns education advocacy organization, said Friday that the discussion by Holmes and the board on Thursday didn’t signify any true movement on a new middle school.

“I have respect for Dr. Holmes but saying something and taking definitive action are two different things,” Newton said. “We’ve been hearing the same thing for years.”

Board member Michael Nellums said at the School Board meeting Thursday that the 25,000-student district has building needs throughout the city.

“It’s a wide-open conversation. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that if you are going to build out west and if you are going to build out southwest, I want you to consider building in the central part of the district,” Nellums said. “I’m just going to lay that down on the line for you, too.”

Nellums said that existing district schools have vacancies and that closing some campuses and reconfiguring others may be necessary if new schools are to be built.

“That’s a whole lot to put on the plate,” Nellums said. “We need to have that conversation but it’s a large conversation. It’s not just buying a plot of land out west or buying a plot of land in southwest. Let’s look at the whole picture.”

Of the district’s seven middle schools, only Pulaski Heights and Mabelvale are considered to be operating at full capacity, said Frederick Fields, the district’s senior director of student services.

Holmes responded that it is correct to talk about district wide needs.

“But you won’t build three, four schools at one time,” Holmes said. “There is not enough money in Fort Knox. We are going to build two schools. You don’t have enough bonding capacity to build over two schools. You don’t have it. I as superintendent am not going to interact with parents in such a way to make them think we will build more than two schools.”

Holmes also told the board that finding some 40 affordable acres for a middle school in west Little Rock is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Board member Greg Adams urged that the board take advantage of the work that has been done by the district in recent months toward identifying possible property for schools.

“We have made a decision as a board to look at facilities, including two [new] schools. That is part of our board’s goals,” he said. “There are disadvantages to waiting longer if we have done the proper research for land. I would hope that if the administration can get to the point of proposing the purchase of land, we could do that and then move to have the big discussion and have [the land] as part of our assets.”

Adams said there is some urgency to take “concrete” action because the district sometimes loses families to nondistrict schools when their children are ready for middle school. He noted that there is an effort under way by some families in west Little Rock to organize an independently run charter school.

For some families, “proximity of schools takes precedence and if there is not a neighborhood school they will look for any other resource because it is such a high priority,” Adams said.

He also said the charter school organizers are likely to argue for the charter school in part by saying that the district hasn’t respond to the need for a traditional middle school.

Newton, the Roberts Elementary parent, said Friday that there are only three schools in the School Board’s Zone 4 in northwest Little Rock and three others in Zone 5, also in west Little Rock, while there are at least twice as many schools in each of the other zones.

“Those people in Zones 4 and 5 are not asking for anything that hasn’t been afforded every other community and neighborhood in this city,” Newton said about having nearby schools. He added that the residents of the two west Little Rock zones are the victims of stereotypes or biases that people have against people who live in that part of town.

Newton said he will pursue the development of the charter school and traditional public school in west Little Rock so that parents will have a choice.

Holmes told the board Thursday that district administrators are “moving with dispatch on these matters,” but emphasized that the issues surrounding school construction are complex.

“We are dealing with capacity; we’re dealing with proximity; we’re dealing with location; we’re dealing with class; we are dealing with race; we are dealing with a plethora [of] stuff that has come forth since 1957 and it’s time to unravel it,” Holmes said. “There is no need to think we can have a simple conversation about these issues.”

Arkansas, Pages 17 on 02/17/2013