Charter issue looms for LR School Board

— The Little Rock School Board meets tonight to consider how to respond to the latest proposal for an open enrollment charter school - but the board will do it without its newly elected members.

Greg Adams and Michael Nellums were elected Tuesday to the School Board for the state’s largest school district. Voters elected Adams in an uncontested race for the Zone 4 seat now held by Baker Kurrus. Nellums defeated incumbent Mike Daugherty for the board’s Zone 2 seat.

Daugherty and Kurrus will continue to serve on the board until the new members are sworn in next month.

The Pulaski County Election Commission will meet at 4 p.m. Oct. 1 to certify the election results. After that, Nellums and Adams can be sworn in.

In overseeing the 26,000-student Little Rock School District with its budget of more than $300 million, the new board members will be called on to help deal with the competition for student enrollment at a time of increasing numbers of public, but independently run, charter schools in Pulaski County.

Currently, 12 of the state’s 17 charter schools are in Pulaski County, and another has been proposed for opening in 2011.

The Little Rock School District filed a complaint last summer in federal court challenging what it said was the state Board of Education’s practice of approving charter schools without regard to desegregation efforts in traditional public schools.

The decision to file a legal challenge split the board 4-3. Daugherty was part of that four-member majority, while Kurrus voted against taking legal action.

On Wednesday the board’s newly elected members said they weren’t familiar with all the legal points.

They also said the district would be well-served to concentrate on improving its own schools.

Adams said he doesn’t see himself pushing for a reversal on the legal motion that split the board earlier this year.

“I am not coming in with the idea that I would try to change what the board has already decided to do,” Adams said. “I don’t have all the information that I need to have as far as the legal case to know whether it was the wisest thing to do legally.”

“My general thought is that, in the big picture, the school district is going to have greater success by improving its schools and letting the public know about the good things that are happening rather than playing defense against the charter schools.”

Adams said he intends for his focus as a board member to be on helping the Little Rock district “be the best district it can be without worrying about the charter schools.”

Nellums said Wednesday that he has “not read a shred of the legal proceedings” but plans to get up to speed on the district’s specific concerns quickly.

“Nobody is bending my ear, which is a good thing,” Nellums said. “Most people know that I am a fairly independent person, and it might not do them a whole lot of good for them to state their case, especially a premature case.”

As for his thoughts on the general concept of charter schools, Nellums - who is principal at Mills University Studies High School in the neighboring Pulaski County Special School District - said he understands that people want school options for their children.

“They believe that charter schools for some reason or another right now in Little Rock are providing as good or better opportunities for their children to be successful,” he said.

“I think parents deserve choices,” he added, “but I want [traditional] public schools to be the best choice.”

Nellums and Adams said the charter schools have state laws and guidelines that they are to follow.

“If the state gives [a charter-school plan] approval, a green light to go ahead, then the school has to have some accountability measures built in that allow public schools to remain competitive and vice versa,” Nellums said.

The Little Rock district in its motion has said the state Education Board is giving unconditional approval to charter schools in Pulaski County in violation of a 1989 settlement between the district and the state. In that settlement, the state pledged to take no actions that would be detrimental to desegregation efforts.

The district contends in its legal challenge that the charter schools in the county are drawing high-performing and affluent students away from the Little Rock district, particularly its magnet schools, which are tools to promote racial desegregation.

The district says it is left with greater proportions of underachieving and/or poor students, and fewer financial resources to serve them.

State officials have responded that charter schools are open to all students.

No court hearing has been scheduled in the case that is assigned to U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller.

Today’s School Board meeting is to begin at 5:30 p.m.

At the meeting, the board is to consider what stand to take on the proposed Arkansas School for Integrated Academics and Technologies charter school for grades nine through 12 at the Little Rock Job Corps Center on Scott Hamilton Drive.

The proposed public charter school, which would operate independently of the Little Rock district, would accommodate 275 students.

Arkansas, Pages 7 on 09/23/2010

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