The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday granted appeals to five of six school districts that had challenged the probation-status designations given to them for violating state accreditation standards.
With the changes, the Barton-Lexa, Earle, Mountain Pine, West Side and White County school districts will join 1,049 schools or school districts that have either been accredited or accredited with a citation. The state has 1,066 schools and 257 school districts.
The England School District, which lost its appeal Thursday, will be placed on probationary status, along with 21 other schools or school districts. Of all the campuses, only Dermott High School was on probation for a second consecutive year.
"We will be notifying them either [Friday] or Monday," said Johnie Walters, leader of the standards-assurance unit in the state Department of Education. "That school is required to appear before the state Board of Education at the next ... meeting."
While the schools and the district on probation remain accredited, they are in jeopardy of facing more serious state sanctions if they violate accreditation standards in the coming school year and are placed on probation for a second time. In those cases, the state Education Board can take eight specific actions against the school, including removal of the superintendent or the merger of the school with another.
The districts that appealed Thursday were mostly in violation of having no students enrolled in a course. At the Earle district, though, a Teach for America teacher had not secured proper licensure in the 2014-15 academic year.
Earle Superintendent Rickey Nicks pleaded with the Education Board to take away its probationary status. The district hires some Teach for America employees, who go to the Arkansas Delta, after background checks, preliminary test scores and the securing of a provisional license, he said.
"In this case, the one teacher apparently slipped through the cracks of TFA," Nicks said. "We did everything in good faith. They were unaware that they hadn't done all of their due diligence."
Rules for Teach for America employees recently changed, mandating the instructors to meet state licensure standards, officials said. Board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock said she had received calls from the group's officials, who "fully admitted" the new requirements would be a big change and didn't catch the error in Earle.
The other districts that won appeals either had no students enrolled in certain classes or had students who dropped out of those courses, which were mostly physics or journalism.
The Barton-Lexa district, for example, offered physics to its students through Virtual Arkansas, an online-only school.
"The course was on the schedule at all times," Barton-Lexa High School Principal Chris Goodin said. "There were seats available at all time. At no time was a student denied access to the physics course. The fact that no student enrolled was my oversight."
Under the current standards, Walters said, "taught" means students are enrolled in the course.
But a new law -- Act 853 of 2015 -- will change those standards for the next accreditation period. Under those standards, a school or district will be in compliance with state accreditation standards even if students enroll in a course but later drop it, or if the district offers a course but no one signs up.
Education Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock voted against all appeals from schools or districts with those violations, saying the law was not yet in effect.
"I've got concerns about Act 853 watering down ... what people have worked so hard to build in terms of course offerings," he said.
Walters was unsure Thursday how many schools or districts, which would later be exempt under similar violations, didn't appeal.
The England district was facing similar violations. There, two students had enrolled in physics but later dropped the course, but the high school also failed to offer drama, Walters said.
The two former physics students had failed the class the first semester and didn't have the foundation in place to continue the course, said England High School Principal Eddie Nally.
"With the issue of the drama class, we have -- me and my counselor -- have spent exhaustive hours trying to contact outside providers in order to secure drama for our school," Nally said.
The high school had signed up with Virtual Arkansas to offer drama online, and eight students had enrolled in the class, high school counselor Mari Ben Newton said. The school received a letter in August from Virtual Arkansas, saying the online school could not provide the course, she said.
At the time, the school did not have a teacher certified to instruct a drama course and Newton had contacted other approved vendors for online courses to no avail.
"We decided the best thing to do was to go with oral communications for the year," she said. "I did not know it was a different course code."
One student enrolled in the oral communications class, but was later expelled for a weapons violation, Nally said.
The eight students who originally signed up for the drama class decided to take a different course, Newton said.
The Education Board voted 7-1 to uphold the district's probationary status, with Kim Davis of Fayetteville dissenting.
"In the drama case where there's a desire for eight students to take it, it is the responsibility of the district to make it happen," Barth said.
A Section on 06/12/2015