The Arkansas Board of Education voted 5-3 Thursday to accept a state panel’s earlier approval of an agricultural-themed charter school in the Scott community where the Pulaski County Special School District recently closed an elementary school.
The state Education Board also gave final approval to five district-run conversion charter schools — including virtual schools in both Fayetteville and Springdale.
But the board withheld a decision until after a hearing next month on the proposed, independently operated Arkansas Connections Academy, which would be a statewide virtual school with headquarters in Bentonville.
The open-enrollment Scott Charter School and the conversion charter schools in Fayetteville, Springdale, Hot Springs, Cave City and Gentry were initially evaluated and approved by the state’s Charter Authorizing Panel, which is made up of top-level staff in the Arkansas Department of Education.
The state Education Board has the authority to finalize the panel’s actions on charter school applications by either accepting the panel’s decision on a school or by holding a hearing on a proposed school either on its own initiative or at the request of the school planners or the surrounding traditional school district.
The Scott Charter School is being developed by Academics Plus Charter School Inc., which operates a kindergarten through 12th-grade school in Maumelle. It is one of the state’s oldest charter schools.
Scott Charter School will start as an elementary school next August and expand into the middle and high school grades in later years. It will ultimately be able to serve as many as 975 students.
Scott school planners would like the schools to be housed in the elementary school building that the Pulaski County Special School District operated until this school year.
The district closed the school to save money, and most pupils were assigned to Harris Elementary in the McAlmont community about 12 miles away.
Rob McGill, the executive director of Academics Plus, welcomed the board’s decision, saying it creates “a great opportunity” for the Academics Plus organization and for Scott, which is a farming community in eastern Pulaski County.
The school’s planners are negotiating with the Pulaski County Special district to acquire the vacant elementary school in Scott, McGill said.
He also said that parents can begin right away to apply for the new school by going to the “Schools” and “Scott Charter School” links on the organization’s website: academicsplus.org.
If more pupils apply for the school than there are available seats, a lottery will be held in March to select the pupils.
State Board of Education members Jay Barth of Little Rock, Susan Chambers of Bella Vista and Mireya Reith of Fayetteville voted against accepting the authorizing panel’s recommendation without holding a hearing.
Barth said he wanted assurances that the Scott plan would not hinder school desegregation efforts in the surrounding state-controlled Pulaski County Special district, which is seeking release from federal court supervision in a 33-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit.
Attorneys for the Pulaski County Special district and for black students known as the Joshua intervenors in the lawsuit had raised objections to the Scott Charter School plan. State law says that charter schools are not to delay or hinder desegregation efforts in a traditional school system. School planners have said that the Pulaski County Special district has been declared unitary in regard to student assignments to schools.
“We were warned about how carefully to tread in making any alterations in the dynamics of the Pulaski County Special district until the Pulaski County district is declared unitary,” Barth told his board colleagues.
Barth said he was very sensitive to Scott residents who have been outspoken in support of having a school. But he also said he had concerns about approving the agricultural-themed school as an amendment to the existing charter or contract with Academics Plus Charter School Inc., which is typically described as a college preparatory program.
“This is really a very different kind of delivery of education than what Academics Plus has delivered at its Maumelle school. This feels like it should be a new charter rather than an amendment. I’m not convinced that Academics Plus is prepared to do the kind of innovation they [propose],” he said.
The proposed Arkansas Connections Academy would ultimately serve as many as 3,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade across the state, starting with up to 600 in kindergarten through ninth grade in the coming school year.
The school would contract with a national education program provider to help students fulfill personalized learning plans that are intended to prepare them for post-secondary education and/or careers.
The proposed academy, if approved by the state Education Board, would become the state’s second independently operated, publicly funded statewide virtual school. The already existing Arkansas Virtual Academy, based in North Little Rock, contracts with K12 Inc. for its educational program.
The state Education Board voted 8-0 to hold its own hearing next month on the academy plan.
Education Board member Diane Zook of Melbourne said she had concerns about the effectiveness of virtual schools, which rely heavily on parents in a home to serve as learning coaches for their children.
“Maybe there are some children who would not benefit or wouldn’t get the same level of education they might in a traditional classroom,” Zook said.
She mentioned special education students in particular as possibly missing needed instruction in such a setting.
Barth urged that the Education Board hold a hearing on the plan.
“It’s a very good proposal,” he said. “I do feel a heightened sense of responsibility related to virtual schools, to be sure we get it right, simply because of the nature of the educational experience.
“I might well vote for it if we review it,” Barth said, but added that he wanted to follow up on questions raised by the panel regarding the track record for student performance in math in other virtual schools and the services that are provided to special education students.
Also Thursday, the Education Board approved the Springdale School of Innovation, which hopes to enroll up to 2,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grades by 2020-21.
The technology-infused school will be the first charter school in the state to feature a dual-language immersion component. Instruction in the dual-language immersion program would be in English and in either Spanish or Mandarin Chinese.
The school will feature an online academic course of study for all grades, on-campus instruction and a blend of the online and on-campus programs.
Students will work at their own pace to fulfill the components of their multiyear personalized education plans based on their long-term college and career choices.
The Education Board also approved the Fayetteville Virtual Academy. The school is designed to serve as many as 500 kindergarten through 12thgrade students who need an accelerated, more flexible learning program or a less stressful learning environment.
The school also will feature personal interaction between students and teachers, enabling students and parents to work face to face with a teacher on a regular basis.
The Fayetteville school’s structure is such that a student who is struggling in an online course can be pulled into small-group or one-to-one instruction, or be put into a more traditional math class, be it a special education or resource math course, or a double-block of algebra instruction.
The Education Board unanimously approved the Hot Springs World Class High School for as many as 1,200 students in ninth through 12th grades.
The school plans call for adding four career academies
— liberal studies, education and health care, business and technology, and industrial technologies — to Hot Springs High School’s already existing International Baccalaureate Programme and a ninth-grade Freshman Academy.
Students would be able to earn associate degrees and industry certificates along with their diplomas from the renamed high school.
The Education Board also approved conversion charter school plans for the Cave City and Gentry high schools that will ease the ability of students to get technical skills training or enroll in concurrent college courses in preparation for college and careers after graduation.