Six districts to seek state charter schools

Some Arkansas school districts are taking steps to open special-program charter schools in the 2014-15 school year.

The Pea Ridge, Hermitage, Warren, Fountain Lake, Pine Bluff and West Memphis school districts recently sent one-page letters to the Arkansas Department of Education stating their intentions to apply for state charters for one or more of their schools.

The applications are due Oct. 31.

If all the districts follow through with the applications and all applications are approved by the stateEducation Department, the number of district-operated conversion charter schools will grow from 18 to 24 in the 2014-15 school year.

The Education Department’s Charter Authorizing Panel has scheduled hearings for Jan. 15 and 16 on any and all forthcoming conversion charter school applications.

The proposed Pea Ridge Charter High School would operate as a school within the larger, traditional high school. The charter program would feature expanded technical and vocational-education courses, and incorporate technology as a way to customize and deliver instruction to students. Theprogram’s purpose would be to better prepare students for in-demand, higher-wage jobs.

The Awesome Adventures Charter School in the Hermitage School District in Bradley County would incorporate the arts, technology and hands-on inquiry or discovery-based learning, according to the district’s letter to the state agency.

The purpose of the school would be to create a place where all students are engaged and eager to learn, and where they will grow into confident, disciplined problem-solvers.

The Hermitage charter school, if approved, would serve all kindergarten through sixth-grade students in the rural but racially and ethnically diverse school system. After the first year of operating at the elementary level, the charter school model would be expanded into the high school.

Plans call for Warren Middle School’s academic program for all sixththrough eighth-grade students to be transformed into a program in which students are provided the time and support they each need to master concepts and provide evidence of their learning.

Rather than being assigned to a “grade,” children would progress through “learning levels.” They would be held responsible for providing evidence of their learning and their readiness for moving up to the next instructional level, according to the letter of intent sent to the state Education Department.

The Warren School District is already operating two state-approved conversion charter schools that feature similar strategies - Eastside New Vision Charter School for grades kindergarten through third, and the Brunson New Vision Charter for grades fourth and fifth.

The Fountain Lake Middle School and Cobra Digital Prep Academy, if approved for charter status, would combine the national Common Core standards, research-based educational practices and technology to provide up to 500 fifth- through eighth-grade students with an individualized, experiential education program.

The interdisciplinary instructional program will require students to produce portfolios of their work to show their mastery of skills and their preparation for college and careers.

The Pine Bluff School District would join with the Dollarway and Watson Chapel school districts to form the Jefferson County Tri-District Alternative Charter School for up to 200 students in grades six through 12, Pine Bluff Superintendent Linda Watson wrote to the state Education Department.

The charter school would be used as an intervention tool for students who are in jeopardy of not graduating from high school because of a history of truancy or behavioral problems, or who are older than their classmates in a traditional school. The charter school plan would also serve students in lieu of them being expelled from school or being placed in the legal system.

The West Memphis School District is developing plans for the West Memphis Career and Technical Academy that would incorporate the ninth-graders at the district’s three junior highs and students at West Memphis High.

Concurrent college credit classes would be offered to students beginning in ninth grade to help students receive “focused, technology-driven instruction,” to prepare them for college and careers.

The proposed charter school program would facilitate “innovative and bonafide pipelines toward jobs and economic prosperity” for West Memphis students and for the Mississippi River Delta region, Superintendent Jon Collins wrote to the Education Department.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 09/22/2013

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