U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. approved a plan Wednesday to offer new graduates of the Pulaski County Special School District a summer college-preparation program and scholarship incentives of up to $10,000.
The Class of 2014 will be the first to benefit.
The plan -- jointly proposed by the Pulaski County Special School District and the Joshua intervenors, who represent black students in a 31-year-old school desegregation lawsuit -- calls for the district to pay $10 million over three years to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock for the operation of the Charles W. Donaldson Scholars Academy.
The newly approved plan supplements the district's desegregation Plan 2000, Marshall said, and does not supplant any of the district's existing desegregation obligations. The judge, however, left the door open for the district to return to court later for approval of its plans to eliminate district jobs, such as home-school consultants and counselors, required in Plan 2000 and funded with state desegregation aid that will be discontinued after the 2017-18 school year.
A key component of the Donaldson Scholars Academy is a three-week summer residential program at UALR. The summer "bridge" program is designed to help graduates from the district's six high schools -- particularly low-performing black graduates -- improve their math and literacy test scores so that they can begin college in August without having to take costly, noncredit remedial courses.
Students who successfully complete the summer program and are accepted at the university or at Philander Smith College, a private college in Little Rock, will be eligible for $2,500 scholarships. The scholarships are renewable for up to four years, a value of $10,000, for those who meet requirements for grades and course loads.
"The Donaldson Academy holds great promise," Marshall said at the conclusion of a two-hour court hearing. "I am encouraged by the targeting of this program to these students who might otherwise think that they cannot take part in going to college or might not succeed if they did," the judge said.
Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, who represents the Joshua intervenors, told Marshall that it is his position that black students have not been well served in the three Pulaski County school districts. Despite measures taken in the long-running school desegregation case, he said, there has been "no measurable increase in achievement" among black students.
The Donaldson Academy will provide a better future for 12th-graders who do not necessarily qualify for college admission or scholarships because of ACT college-entrance exam scores that are 20 and below on a 36-point scale, Walker said.
"We sought a way to introduce students to college while in high school," he said, "to see something they might not otherwise see because of socioeconomic disadvantages. The idea is to provide incentives and motivation to cause youngsters to believe they can have some kind of opportunity and future" without having to take remedial courses or incurring large student tuition debt.
The three-week summer program, which has operated on a smaller scale in the past few years with funds from various foundations, will be available to the Pulaski County Special district's just graduated Class of 2014. Walker assured the judge that the program is not exclusively for black students.
Donaldson, a recently retired vice chancellor at the university and the creator of the program, told Marshall during Wednesday's hearing that the program developed a few years ago out of a concern that educators were not seeing success in their work with black students, especially young men.
"It was clear we needed a transition program for high school students coming to college," Donaldson said. "We created the summer bridge program to bring them to campus for three weeks. We took away their cellphones and their car keys and provided them with a rigorous curriculum, plus some activities. We saw students succeed at a rate much higher than the general students on campus."
Amber Smith, director of the program and a UALR student-development specialist, described the components of the summer program for the judge. The students are tested, and a program is developed to address deficient skills in a way that is tailored to their learning style.
Mentors are assigned to the students to help build their confidence, as well as teach them study and time-management skills, Smith said. The students use technology, and there is traditional in-class instruction and activities such as spelling bees and math competitions.
In last year's group of 44 students, 86 percent were able to bypass college remedial courses in math, Smith said. That percentage grew to 93 percent by the time the college semester began in August.
While the university and Philander Smith College do not make direct financial contributions to the program, some of their staff and adjunct faculty members will be among the instructors in the program.
The Donaldson Scholars Academy also will include once-a-month Saturday classes for the district's selected ninth-graders starting in the fall. That will expand to 10th-graders in 2015-16 and 11th- and 12th-graders in subsequent years. The rising 10th- through 12th-graders will be invited to spend four days in residence at the university or Philander Smith each summer when the program is fully operational.
In response to questions from the judge, Pulaski County Special School District Superintendent Jerry Guess said the district will be better able to meet its desegregation obligations regarding student achievement with the Donaldson Academy.
The district's Plan 2000 calls for the district to work with the University of Memphis on evaluating and using student test results to help guide instruction. Plan 2000 also requires the home-school counselors to work with families of children at risk of school failure.
The district has notified about a dozen home-school counselors that their jobs will be eliminated, as will other positions funded with state desegregation aid and not required by the state for operating schools. The elimination of those positions will save the district about $1.8 million a year, which will go toward the $3.3 million a year that the district will pay into a restricted-use account managed by UALR for the academy. The district has other plans, such as streamlining bus routes, to generate the rest of the money for the academy.
Guess said the services provided by the home-school counselors will be continued by the traditional school counselors and/or the Donaldson Academy. He said the academy will be "a great service to students who are preparing for post-secondary education."
Walker told the judge that while he has agreed that jobs will be cut in the district, he has not agreed that the home-school counselors should be eliminated. He said those employees are in the process of appealing the loss of their jobs to the Arkansas Education Commissioner who acts as the school board in the state-controlled district. As a result, a decision on eliminating the jobs is not yet final, Walker said.
Marshall told the district and the Joshua intervenors that he will work with the parties on altering the Plan 2000 commitments if that becomes necessary.
The Donaldson Scholars Academy operators sent out email invitations to about 350 Pulaski County Special district graduates earlier this spring but will expand on that in the coming days, Smith said after the hearing.
The program, scheduled for July 13-Aug. 2, is budgeted to serve about 250 graduates.
Interested Pulaski County Special district members of the Class of 2014 can contact Smith at the university at 569-3328 or by email at [email protected].
Marshall cautioned the parties against putting too much confidence in the success of a new program, and he urged that as much of the county district's $10 million as possible be used directly for the program participants.
"I commend both sides," Marshall told the attorneys about the program. "This gives me hope, and I look forward to seeing some good proof, sooner rather than later."
A section on 06/12/2014