State board approves LR boys charter school

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Board of Education on Monday approved a charter school for boys to open next year.

But - in response to Little Rock School District concerns - most students at the school will have to be either low achieving or from low-income families.

That condition came after lawyers for the state Department of Education and the school district disagreed about its legality.

The Little Rock Urban Collegiate Public Charter School for Young Men, designed to serve up to 696 boys in kindergarten through eighth grades is the only new open enrollment charter school to receive state approval for opening in 2010-11.

It will bring to 19 the number of open-enrollment charter schools in the state and it will be the 12th independently run public charter school in Pulaski County.

In its 7-0 vote to approve the single-sex school, the Education Board said that at least 80 percent of the school’s enrollees must either qualify for free- and reduced-price school meals because of low family income or they must have scored at basic or below-basic levels on the state Benchmark Exams.

Jackie Jackson, a Little Rock education consultant and mother, applied for the five-year charter for a school that she said would focus on the needs and learning styles of young males from “low income, economically disadvantaged environments.”

School planners targeted their surveys and early recruiting efforts to residents in the 72204 and 72209 zip codes in south and southwest Little Rock to reach low-income families in close proximity to the school site - 4601 S. University Ave.

But Jackson was dismayed Monday by the enrollment requirements - the first of its kind placed by state officials on a public charter school in Arkansas.

“We don’t have any problem with having 80 percent in the school, Jackson said. “It’s just holding us to it. But how do we make sure we get to that point? If we don’t get 80 percent, what does that mean for the school?”

Asked if the requirement might cause planners to withdraw from establishing the school, Jackson said she will have to take some time to explore all the options.

An initial survey of families with students indicated that 281 black students and 14 white students were interested in attending the school, Jackson said.

Arkansas law calls for charter schools to use a random lottery if it has more student applicants than it has seats.

Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said after Monday’s meeting that the agency staff will work with the charter school planners to try to carry out the board requirement.

That could mean changes in the standard lottery process to give students from low-income families or lower achieving students a greater chance of being selected in a lottery for the school.

“It’s something we are going to have to talk to our legal staff about,” Kimbrell said. “I’m not exactly sure how we are going to do it. We don’t know who is going to sign up. We don’t know who is going to show up.”

In some cases, students may be eligible for subsidized school meals but have never filled out the paperwork, Kimbrell said. Some student applicants coming from private or home schools would never have taken the state Benchmark Exams, which are given in third through eighth grades.

“We’re going to have to look at this very closely to ensure that it is something that we can legally and logistically make work,” he said.

Linda Watson, superintendent of the Little Rock School District, said after the meeting that she was pleased that the state board placed some income and achievement requirements on the planned school.

But she also said she was “shocked” that the board approved the school at all because of questions about the school’s counseling and alternative education services and its lack of a chief administrator.

The Little Rock School Board had opposed both Urban Collegiate and another charter school, which was disapproved by the state board last month.

Attorneys for the district have argued in written briefs and in person to the state board in recent weeks that independently run public charter schools draw students from the traditional public school system who might otherwise choose to attend the district’s special-program magnet schools or participate in the Majority-to-Minority interdistrict student transfer program.

Both the magnet schools and the interdistrict student transfer program are intended to promote racial desegregation of schools.

The Little Rock district’s attorneys argued that charter schools hinder federal court-ordered desegregation efforts, and also said the schools attract higher-achieving students and students with families who can afford to transport their children to and from school.

That leaves the traditional school district with fewer financial resources to educate a greater concentration of low-achieving, low-income students, the attorneys have argued.

State aid - which this year totals $5,940 per student - follows students from the traditional school to the charter school.

Little Rock attorneys Chris Heller and Clay Fendley proposed that the state board impose about nine different conditions on the Urban Collegiate school to minimize its effect on Little Rock desegregation.

Those included the minimum 80 percent requirement for low-achieving or low-income students and school bus transportation. The district also wanted the charter school to identify an administrator and put into place both counseling and alternative education programs.

Jeremy Lasiter, an attorney for the state Education Department, told the board that any imposed conditions must be based in state or federal law. He said he didn’t believe there was a direct link between the proposed conditions and law.

“I’m not aware of any law or court order that applies in this case,” Lasiter said.

Before the vote, Fendley told the board that it has the “broadest authority” to impose limitations on charter schools based on a 1989 financial settlement between the district and the state that was approved by the federal court. That settlement obligates the state to not hinder desegregation efforts.

“This is not about the Little Rock School District complying with the 1989 settlement, it’s about you complying with the 1989 settlement,” Fendley told the board. “This school subverts that” he said of the charter school as it was proposed.

Dr. Ben Mays, a board member from Clinton, initially said he would prefer to wait a year to vote on the Urban Collegiate school because by then a federal court is expected to rule on whether the Pulaski County Special and North Little Rock districts have achieved unitary status and are released from court monitoring of their desegregation efforts.

Court hearings on the districts’ request for unitary status are scheduled for next month before U.S. District Judge Brian Miller. The Little Rock district has already been released from court monitoring but continues to participate in magnet school and the Majority-to-Minority transfer programs.

Board member Toyce Newton of Crossett told Jackson that she had concerns about the school plan to use Central Arkansas Transportation buses to get students to and from school.

“I’m concerned that it will be available but not adequate, she said.

Jackson said the bus system is willing to work with the school. If all students need bus passes, it will cost the school about $160,000.

Board member Jim Cooper of Melbourne made the motion to approve the charter school.

Board member Brenda Gullett of Fayetteville made a motion to amend the proposal to require school planners to return to the board in a year to report on whether it was successful in its effort to recruit low-income or low-performing students. The amendment passed unanimously.

Then Mays further amended the motion to require that at least 80 percent of the students meet the income or achievement requirements. That amendment passed 5-2 with Cooper and Sherry Burrow of Jonesboro opposing it.

Then the board unanimously approved the twiceamended motion.

In addition to Urban Collegiate, the state board last month approved expanding the Knowledge is Power Program charter school in Helena-West Helena to Blytheville. It’s not considered a new charter school.