The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday placed 20 of the state's 1,065 traditional and charter public schools on first-year probation for violating assorted education standards during the just completed 2016-17 school year.
Those schools include six of the seven campuses in the Pine Bluff School District, which were cited for exceeding maximum caps on students in a class. Some of the other districts with a school on probation include Stuttgart, Berryville, and Heber Springs. The Arkansas School for the Deaf Elementary and Exalt Academy, an open-enrollment charter school in Little Rock, were also put on probation.
Three districts -- Bryant, Greenwood and Woodlawn -- had schools that were recommended for probation by Arkansas Department of Education staff for standards violations, but the Education Board granted the appeals from those districts to excuse their schools from the probation designation.
A first-year probation label puts a school or a even an entire district -- depending upon the violation -- in jeopardy of losing state accreditation if they fail in the next school year to correct the violation or commit a violation of a different standard. A school labeled as being in the first year of probation remains accredited and is not penalized further by the state.
Tom Kimbrell, a former Arkansas education commissioner who is retiring this month from the superintendent's job in Bryant, told the state Education Board that he made the decision last August to allow some of Bryant Middle School's pre-Advance Placement classes to exceed by one to three pupils the state-set limit of 30 pupils per class.
If school district leaders had declined to expand the class rosters, the pupils' only option would have been to take the desired courses at another time of the day, causing them to choose between a rigorous academic course and extracurricular activities such as band, choir, robotics or athletics.
Kimbrell said he was reluctant to force pupils to make those choices.
"I accept full responsibility as superintendent of schools. My guidance led us to this particular juncture," Kimbrell said before the state board's 7-1 vote to grant the appeal on probation. ""We had no other options," he said, adding that it is difficult at the end of August or the first of September to find qualified pre-Advanced Placement teachers. Even if the school could find the teachers, there was no available classroom space for them, he said. The district recently received voter approval for funding a new middle and elementary school, and an addition to the high school.
The Bryant Middle School's teachers were asked and said they were willing to take more students in some of their classes, but no teacher had more than 150 pupils per semester, another maximum set in state accreditation standards. Fifteen pupils took the pre-Advanced Placement courses who otherwise would not have been able to do so, Kimbrell said.
Kimbrell suggested that a probation label on the middle school could possibly result in the district having to pay a higher interest rate on soon-to-be-issued construction bonds.
Jeremy Lasiter, a former Education Department chief legal counsel and now the Bryant district's director of human resources and legal affairs, told the Education Board that a standard can be waived if there is just and reasonable cause. He said the lack of space and teachers constituted cause for the Bryant Middle School.
Education Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock voted against granting the appeal, calling the situation a "retroactive waiver" problematic and precedent-setting.
Education Commissioner Johnny Key said the purpose of having school accreditation standards and an appeals process is to protect students from the ill effects of violating standards. Education Department staff, he said, do not have the same discretion to excuse violations that the Education Board has in cases where students are not harmed.
The Bryant district will not be put on probation for the class-size violations in the coming school year. Earlier Thursday, the Education Board granted the district a waiver of class-size and teacher-load requirements in the pre-Advanced Placement courses for the next five years. Act 1240 of 2015 allows waivers of state laws and rules for traditional school districts if one or more of their students are enrolled in open-enrollment charter schools that have the same waivers.
More than 90 of the state's 234 traditional school districts have received state approval of waivers of state laws and rules -- including nearly 30 districts at Thursday's Education Board meeting.
The Education Board on Thursday approved an appeal by the Woodlawn district regarding recommendations for probation because of the lack of a school media specialist at the elementary school and because two high school teachers did not hold state teacher licenses.
Superintendent Dudley Hume said Woodlawn students received instruction from the teachers in the Warren School District. While the Warren district had a state waiver of licensure for the teachers, the Woodlawn district did not and didn't know the teachers weren't licensed -- resulting in the probation recommendation.
Hume also said the Woodlawn district had one librarian for its library that serves both the elementary and high school. While the district has fewer than 600 students total, its elementary school had an enrollment of over 300, requiring more than a shared librarian.
The library media specialist position also was an issue for the Greenwood School District in Sebastian County. The Education Board granted that district's appeal of a probation recommendation for the district's ninth-grade Freshman Center for failing to have a library media specialist.
Kevin Hesslen, assistant superintendent, said the Freshman Center is attached to Greenwood High so that the two campuses can share space for the cafeteria and library. School leaders learned that one media specialist could not be coded to two schools with separate local education agency numbers. The district has received an Act 1240 waiver allowing the shared media specialist for future years.
Schools that are placed on probation for violations in the 2016-17 school year are Arkansas School for the Deaf Elementary, Berryville Intermediate School, Exalt Academy, Heber Springs High, Quitman Elementary, Rector High, Stuttgart Junior High, Dumas High, Lakeside Middle in Garland County, Glen Rose Middle, Matthews Elementary in Dollarway, Watson Chapel High, Lee High, Bauxite High and in Pine Bluff: Broadmoor Elementary, 34th Avenue Elementary, Southwood Elementary, Jack Robey Junior High, W.T. Cheney Elementary and Pine Bluff High. Lee County School District and Arkansas School for the Deaf systems are also on probation for standards violations.
Metro on 06/09/2017