Arkansas Board of Education members on Friday identified information they want for forthcoming hearings on Little Rock charter schools -- but they did not consider canceling those hearings, which had been contemplated earlier.
The special, 4:15 p.m. teleconference board meeting came at the end of a day that included the significant altering of the Education Board's agenda for the meeting and a motion in federal court by attorneys for Little Rock parents and displaced School Board members for a temporary restraining order. A judge denied the restraining order.
At issue are proposals for charter expansions and renewals.
The eStem and LISA Academy charter-school systems are asking for state approval to increase the number of campuses they operate within the boundaries of the Little Rock School District. Together, the two systems are seeking to open four new campuses and 3,000 new charter seats.
Additionally, the Covenant Keepers Charter School, also in Little Rock, and the Imboden Area Charter School, which is near Jonesboro, are seeking to renew their state-issued charters that are otherwise to expire at the end of June.
A team of attorneys that includes Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, and Shawn Childs filed the request for the restraining order to stop any expansion of the eStem charter system, in particular. The motion stated that if the state Education Department permitted eStem to expand within Little Rock, the Little Rock district "will be negatively impacted."
In the written argument sent to U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. in support of the motion for the restraining order, the attorneys said that "irreparable harm will occur to black students within the LRSD if eSTEM is allowed to continue to bleed the district dry of its student populations."
Marshall, who is the presiding judge in a relatively new lawsuit that challenges, in part, the 2015 state takeover of the Little Rock School District, denied the motion within a couple of hours of receiving it.
The judge called the motion "premature."
The Arkansas Department of Education's Charter Authorizing Panel -- made up of top-level staff members at the agency -- approved each of the proposed charter-school expansions and renewals in February.
The state Education Board has the authority to accept the panel's decisions or conduct its own hearing on a charter-school matter. At the Education Board's March 10 meeting, board members voted 6-1 to hold a hearing on the eStem plan and 7-1 to hold a hearing on the LISA Academy plan. The board votes were unanimous to review the Covenant Keepers and Imboden renewals.
The department set the hearings on the Little Rock-area charter schools for 5 p.m. March 31, and the Imboden charter hearing for April 14.
On Thursday, the state Education Department announced that the Education Board would hold the special meeting Friday to consider rescinding those March 10 decisions for hearings, a move that could have allowed the authorizing panel's votes to approve the proposals to stand. Education Board member Brett Williamson of El Dorado, who opposed the board hearings from the start, asked that the March 10 decisions be reconsidered.
Also on the agenda for Friday's special meeting was the matter of identifying information that the Education Board members would want should the March 31 and April 14 review hearings on the charter schools proceed.
By Friday morning, the Education Department distributed an updated agenda that no longer included possibly reversing the board's March 10 votes to review the charter school renewals and expansions.
Kimberly Friedman, a spokesman for the Education Department, said Friday that the agenda items were removed at the request of board members, leaving the board with only the task of identifying what information it needs for the coming review hearings.
Only Education Board Chairman Toyce Newton of Crossett was present at the Friday meeting, which attracted about 60 charter-school and Little Rock School District representatives and Education Department staff members.
The other eight board members, participating by telephone, asked for demographic and financial data about the students at the eStem and LISA schools and in the Little Rock School District.
Education Board member Susan Chambers of Bella Vista said she is receiving a continuing stream of information from the differing sides in the debate over charter-school expansions. She asked Education Department staff members for information to "bridge" that information to make clearer how the expansion of the charter systems might affect the traditional district in terms of costs and student demographics.
Board member Mireya Reith of Fayetteville asked for student data in regard to poverty level, special education needs and limited English skills for the past several years.
Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock asked for a description of the process used by the charter schools to purge their waiting lists of students who are no longer interested in attending their schools. He questioned also whether the same students are on multiple lists.
Barth also asked for information on how the Little Rock School District and Pulaski County charter schools south of the Arkansas River could collaborate.
Education Board member Diane Zook of Melbourne asked for data from the Little Rock district, by school, that deals with remediation and dyslexia programs, student referrals to alternative learning programs, teacher absenteeism rates, student graduation rates and data on students who move into the district schools from private schools and home schools.
Zook also asked during the special meeting that the Education Board amend its agenda to renew the charter for the Imboden Area Charter School and forgo an April hearing on that renewal. She said she had no reservations about the school after doing research on it and its services to students.
Other board members said that while they are likely to support the renewal of the school's charter, they did not feel comfortable adding the matter to the agenda without advance notice to the school or the general public.
Chambers cautioned that accelerating decisions can result in incorrect conclusions and can create a breach of trust.
Education Board members said Friday that they were receiving hundreds of emails regarding the charter-school matters. Barth asked if there was a central location that could be used as a way to manage the information.
Alexandra Boyd, the Education Department's charter school/home school office director, said members of the public can use a Google document form that is accessible at the following link: http://goo.gl/forms/FwjmNd6TTf.
"These comments will be collected by the department's Charter Unit and shared with all members of the State Board of Education and Charter Authorizing Panel in a uniform manner," Boyd said.
Representatives of the charter schools said after the meeting Friday that they could provide most of the information that the Education Board members are seeking.
Atnan Ekin, superintendent of the LISA Academy, said that demographic data on students who apply to the school and who are placed on the waiting lists is not available. He said the school is not legally able to ask for the race or special education needs of students in advance of their enrolling.
John Bacon, chief executive officer of the eStem schools, said he has met with Little Rock's superintendent, Baker Kurrus, to explore ideas for cooperation.
"However this turns out on March 31, clearly, we are going to have to show this community that these multiple entities can co-exist," Bacon said.
"Whether we get approved or not, whether LISA gets approved, we're still here. Little Rock School District is still here. We have to show the community, because this community is getting fractured by this. Every day this is delayed, it makes it harder to bring the community back together, in my opinion."
Kendra Clay, general counsel for the Education Department, said the special meeting of the state Education Board was necessary Friday because state law and Education Board rules call for board members to identify the specific information they want to hear if they intend to review a charter-school decision made by the state's Charter Authorizing Panel.
Thursday night, members of the Little Rock School District's Civic Advisory Committee -- a state-appointed group of parents, district employees and students whose role is to improve communication and seek higher achievement at the district's academically struggling schools -- sent a statement to the Education Board, asking that the state board not abandon the hearings.
On Friday afternoon, before the Education Board meeting, the Arkansas Public Policy Foundation and the Arkansas Education Association held a short rally in the rotunda of the state Capitol to urge Education Board members to review the charter plans and do what is best for all students in the Little Rock area.
A Section on 03/19/2016