Arkansas Board of Education salutes report on district, charter cooperation

The Arkansas Board of Education offered assurances Thursday that it will address as best it can the recommendations of a committee tasked a year ago with finding ways for collaboration between Pulaski County's school districts and charter schools.

The state-appointed Little Rock Area Public Education Stakeholders Group recommended in its 51-page "Making the Connections that Count" report to the Education Board such steps as:

• Establishing an education service cooperative in Pulaski County, similar to others in the state, as a place where all the public schools -- traditional and charter -- can come together to work on mutually beneficial matters.

• Reviewing the state's 2015 Pulaski County boundaries-study report for the costs of reorganizing the existing school districts in Pulaski County and for the potential segregative effects of creating one school district south of the Arkansas River and as many as four districts north of the river.

[DOCUMENT: Read the full report from the stakeholder group]

• Conducting research that goes beyond anecdotes on why parents choose the schools they do for their children and on the number of charter school seats that can be operated while allowing public school districts to remain viable.

• Targeting the inequities among the different schools in student discipline practices and in services to students with special education and English language learning needs.

• Being the lead in developing a comprehensive, community-based strategic plan for all public schools in Pulaski County that results in schools being placed where they are needed to best serve students.

• Rethinking the process of authorizing charter schools that would ideally support the strategic plan for public education in the county.

Education Board Chairman Jay Barth of Little Rock proposed the formation of the committee last year after the state Education Board approved the expansion of the eStem Public Charter School and the Lisa Academy charter school systems over the vehement objections of the Little Rock School District leaders.

On Thursday, Barth asked the Education Board's subcommittees on discipline and on community engagement and its board member Diane Zook as its liasion on special education issues to reread sections of the report and think about ways the committee's recommendations can tie into their work. He also proposed that the board members revisit the work of the committee at the board's September meeting

Board member Susan Chambers of Bella Vista praised the work of the committee as a "minor miracle -- quick, cheap and very good."

Board member Mireya Rieth of Fayetteville, said the report surpassed her expectations. She asked that the Education Department staff identify the elements of the report that can be accomplished by the Education Department and Education Board as opposed to those that would require statutory changes.

Antwan Phillips, a member of the seven-member stakeholders committee, said the state officials must be the facilitator for collaboration between charter and traditional schools in the way a judge controls adversarial parties in a courtroom.

Jim McKenzie, vice chairman of the committee, emphasized the importance of an overarching strategic plan for public education by quoting baseball legend Yogi Berra: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else."

Acting on the recommendations and suggestions in the report will require courage and a compass, McKenzie told the Education Board.

"Our hope is that the discussions, examples, ideas, cautions and recommendations in this report will help point the way through old barriers into rewarding new territory," he said.

A Section on 08/11/2017