Charter panel OKs plans in 4 districts

The Arkansas Department of Education’s Charter Authorizing Panel has approved plans for the 2014-15 establishment of four “conversion” charter schools, which are schools with innovative academic programs and/or services operated by traditional school districts.

The four conversion schools, which are still subject to review by the Arkansas Board of Education, are:

The Academies of West Memphis.

Pea Ridge Career and Technical Academy for 11th- and 12th-graders.

Fountain Lake Middle School Cobra Digital Prep Academy.

Warren Middle School.

Three of the four schools - all but the Warren Middle School - include plans to employ Responsive Education Solutions of Lewisville, Texas, for various services.

The Academies of West Memphis, for example, intends to contract with Responsive Education for up to 240 hours of consulting services and staff training “in all aspects of school operations,” at a cost of $60,000.

Responsive Education Solutions is better known for operating open-enrollment charter schools. The company has dozens of schools in Texas and within the past year opened charter schools in Bentonville and Pine Bluff and on the Arkansas Baptist College campus in Little Rock. The company recently received Education Board approval to open Quest Middle School later this year on Rahling Road in Little Rock.Contract extended for NLR executive

The North Little Rock School Board gave Superintendent Kelly Rodgers a vote of confidence last week, extending the new superintendent’s contract beyond its 2016 expiration date.

Rodgers and the board negotiated a three-year contract when he took the chief executive’s job last July.

The board’s recent vote makes the contract good through the 2016-17 school year and gives the superintendent the maximum three-year contract allowed by state law.

NLR requests aid for cafeteria, roof

The North Little Rock School District will ask the state to help pay for a new cafeteria at Lakewood Middle School and a partial new roof for Ridgeroad Middle School.

The district has long-standing plans to rebuild and remodel most of the Lakewood campus, but the cafeteria is a priority. Lakewood Principal Lee Tackett told the School Board last week that there are five different lunch periods, starting at 11:15 a.m. and going to 1:20 p.m., to accommodate all students in grades six through nine.

The district will apply by this March for 2016-17 state Academic Facilities Partnership Program funds for the $10.9 million cafeteria project and the $600,000 roof replacement. The state share for the projects would be about 40 percent.

The district is developing the application with support from the Arch Ford Education Service Cooperative, based in Plumerville. The district recently became a member of the cooperative, the only one of the three Pulaski County school districts to join any of the state’s 15 education cooperatives.

Senior one of 300 Intel semifinalists

Nathanael Ji of Little Rock Central High is one of 300 high school seniors to be named a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent Search 2014, a science competition sponsored by Intel and the Society for Science and the Public.

Ji’s project is titled “Engineered Cell-Cell Communication Utilizing Exosomes with miRNA and Protein.”

Each semifinalist, selected from nearly 1,800 entrants, receives a $1,000 award from the Intel Foundation with an additional $1,000 going to the student’s school.

Forty finalists in the competition will be named later this month.

Huntsville leader gets digital honor

Daisy Dyer Duerr, principal of St. Paul High School in the Huntsville School District, is among three school leaders in the nation to be named 2014 Digital Principals by the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

Candidates were asked to submit a video, essay and portfolio that highlight their technology leadership. A panel of peers and education technology leaders examined how candidates applied those skills to achieve school improvement goals.

Duerr and fellow honorees from Illinois and North Carolina will be honored during the organization’s conference, Ignite ’14, to be held Feb. 6-8, in Dallas.

Arkansas, Pages 18 on 01/19/2014