Student transfers out of 'distressed' schools have limits

Last week's Arkansas Board of Education decision designating 26 schools in 15 districts as academically distressed cracks open the door for students assigned to those schools to transfer to other, higher-performing campuses in the coming school year.

But it won't be easy. Many desired schools are full, and there are restrictions.

The 26 newly designated schools include six campuses in the Little Rock School District, three in the Pulaski County Special district, three in Pine Bluff and three in Forrest City. The state classified those and 11 other schools as distressed because more than half of their students over a three-year period performed at below-proficient levels on state Benchmark and End-of-Course exams.

Parents who want to transfer their children out of an academically distressed school must make that request by July 30, according to rules set by the state Board of Education based on Arkansas Code Annotated 6-18-227. There are three options: choose a school within the district, one outside the district or pick an open-enrollment charter school.

The transfer request must be made to the district in which the student resides and to the school the student wants to attend if the desired school is in another district or is a charter school, according to the Arkansas Opportunity Public School Choice Act rules.

The rules specify that a parent can enroll his child in a "legally allowable public school or school district" that is not classified as being in academic distress and "is nearest to the student's legal residence."

The districts are required, "as soon as practicable" after the distress designation is made, to alert the parents of the student transfer options.

Hall, McClellan and J.A. Fair high schools, Cloverdale and Henderson Middle Schools and Baseline Elementary are the Little Rock School District campuses classified as academically distressed.

Pamela Smith, the district's director of communications, said this week that letters to parents about the designation are being prepared.

But the options for transfers to other schools within the district are likely to be limited, Smith said, particularly at the high school level, where only Central and Parkview Magnet out of the district's five high schools escaped the academic distress designation.

"We don't have any seats at any of our high schools at this point," Smith said. "However, we will be able to assess availability of seats at check-in, then reassign, based on students who do not show up." The check-in period in early August is when parents can affirm their intent to send their children to a district school.

The district has five middle schools that are not labeled as academically distressed: Pulaski Heights, Forest Heights, Mabelvale, Dunbar and Horace Mann Magnet. Smith said there are some seats available in some grades at those schools for pupils seeking to leave Henderson and Cloverdale.

Charter school options are likely to be limited for those seeking transfers in the Little Rock area.

School started Wednesday for the eSTEM Public Charter school system, which serves kindergarten through 12th grade in downtown Little Rock.

"At this point, all our seats are filled," said John Bacon, president of the system. "We ran our lotteries in March, so our waiting lists are set for this year. I suppose that some parents from the identified schools might have already applied and have a spot on the waiting list. As seats become available, we will fill them from that list so that would be the only way right now they could get in for 2014-2015."

A check with the Lisa Academy charter school in Little Rock showed that the Little Rock and North Little Rock campuses are now full, and any vacancies will be filled from the schools' waiting lists.

Rob McGill, president of the 750-student Academics Plus charter school in Maumelle, said there are 273 students on the school's waiting list.

"So, sadly at this time we are not an option ... because of the enrollment cap and waiting list," McGill said. "I encourage [families] to apply anyway in case space becomes available in certain grade levels. If space comes available, we will accept them even after July 30."

Each of the six academically distressed schools in Little Rock was identified in 2012 as a "priority" school, meaning the schools were among the 5 percent lowest-achieving schools in the state. As such, the schools had to develop improvement plans and work with improvement specialists from the state Education Department and Pearson Achievement Services, a school improvement consulting company.

The Little Rock district will ratchet up those improvement efforts because of the new designations, said Dennis Glasgow, associate superintendent for accountability. That will include developing plans for improvement that are unique to each campus, providing additional training for principals and teachers, and employing a chief academic officer to coordinate the work at the campuses.

Harris Elementary, Jacksonville High and Wilbur Mills High are the schools designated as academically distressed in the Pulaski County Special district.

Superintendent Jerry Guess said students in the classified schools in his district will have the option to transfer to other schools within the district, but the district is making what he said are "dramatic plans" for the three identified schools.

New principals have been hired for Jacksonville and Mills high schools, and some faculty reassignments have been made for the coming year, particularly at Mills, Guess said. Additionally, the district is revitalizing the gifted and talented/fine arts programs in the College Station Elementary, Fuller Middle School and Mills High feeder system, Deputy Superintendent Laura Bednar said.

Tommie Sue Anthony, a former district administrator, has returned to the school system as a consultant to help with the rebuilding of the Advanced Placement course program at Mills and the related gifted programs at the feeder middle and elementary schools, Bednar said. The gifted program, with its emphasis on fine arts and the extensive array of Advanced Placement courses, previously attracted students from across the Pulaski County Special district to the campuses in the southeast section of the district.

At Harris Elementary, the third school designated as academically distressed, the current principal is expected to remain, Guess said, stabilizing the leadership turnover that has plagued the elementary campus.

"Darnell Bell is making a lot of progress there," Guess said about the small school. "We are gearing up to support him this year, and we believe he will get the school out of the academic distress group."

The district's Office for Pupil and Equity Services will field any requests for transfers out of the designated schools, Bednar said. That office can be reached by calling the district's main number, (501) 234-2000.

Across the state

In several cases statewide, the school designated as academically distressed is the only high school, middle school or elementary school in the district. Any student transfers would have to be to other districts.

That is alarming to Bobby Acklin, superintendent of the Dollarway School District in Jefferson County, where Dollarway High is labeled as academically distressed because of low student achievement on state tests over a three-year period.

"This law is working directly against us," Acklin said Wednesday. "The students who are going to help us get the high school out of academic distress are the kids who are probably going to try to leave, and then we'll never get out. If they leave," he said about high-achieving students, "that will make the challenge even greater for us."

Jeremy Lasiter, a state Education Department attorney, said Wednesday that if the transfer provisions in the academic distress law conflict with a school district's federal court desegregation order, the requirement of the desegregation order trumps the state law.

Dollarway, Forrest City, Blytheville, Helena-West Helena, Marvell-Elaine, and Pulaski County Special have claimed school choice exemptions in the past because of their federal school desegregation orders.

Lasiter said the previous exemptions don't necessarily exempt districts from the academic distress law requirements.

"I've told superintendents who've called to get with their local legal counsel and go through their desegregation order and see if there is a conflict," Lasiter said. "It's not automatic. It's two different laws and two different legal analyses," he said.

Other points included in the rules for transferring from an academically distressed school:

• The superintendent of a nonresident school district must respond by U.S. mail within 30 days to student transfer requests.

• The nonresident district must accept a student transfer unless at least 95 percent of the seats at the desired school and grade level are filled at the time of the request.

• The sending school district can be held responsible for the cost of transporting the transfer student at a rate of up to $400 per student per year.

The schools classified as academically distressed by the state Education Board and not already listed above include Belair Middle, Oak Park Elementary and Pine Bluff High in the Pine Bluff School District; Augusta High; Blytheville High New Tech; Covenant Keepers Charter School in Little Rock; Fordyce High; and Forrest City High, Forrest City Junior High and Lincoln Academy of Excellence in Forrest City.

Others classified are Central High in the Helena-West Helena School District, Marvell-Elaine High, Osceola High, Strong High in the Strong-Huttig School District and Watson Chapel High.

Stephens High in the Stephens School District is classified as academically distressed, but the school has been closed and the district has been divided among three other school districts for the coming year.

The percentage of students scoring at proficient or better at the schools on a three-year average ranges from 28.5 percent to 48.9 percent.

Students scoring at proficient on the Benchmark and End-of-Course exams are said to be achieving at their grade level or are demonstrating mastery of the content matter.

A section on 07/17/2014

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