15 school districts apply to convert schools to charters

Pulaski County Special plans for 2

— Fifteen Arkansas school districts have notified the Arkansas Department of Education of their preliminary plans to start one or more charter schools within their districts in the 2012-13 school year.

Nearly all 16 of the proposed conversion charter schools in the 15 districts would center on science, math and technology education, according to letters of intent to apply for charter status.

The Pulaski County Special School District has proposed two charter schools.

The full conversion charter school applications are due Oct. 31 and will be considered by the Arkansas Board of Education over the winter.

In contrast to publicly funded open-enrollment charter schools that are operated by nonprofit organizations, conversion charter schools are run by traditional school districts.

There is no cap on the number of conversion charter schools approved by the state Board of Education.

The letters of intent for the conversion charters follow Gov. Mike Beebe’s Aug. 16 announcement of his plans to channel more than $2 million into a new statewide initiative dubbed “STEM Works” designed to strengthen science, technology, engineering and math instruction at the high school level.

The Cross County and Lincoln school districts are already putting into place the New Tech High School model - started in California in the mid-1990s - in which students learn core academic subjects and the real-world application of that knowledge by designing and completing hands-on projects.

Arkansas education officials have said they would like to see 10 New Tech High School programs under way in the state in 2012-13 and double that in 2013-14.

The Cross County School District, based in Cherry Valley in northeast Arkansas, received a conversion charter for a New Tech High School program last year.

The Lincoln School District in Northwest Arkansas has notified the state that it will apply for a conversion charter for its program.

Seth Blomeley, a spokesman for the Education Department, said there are different routes school districts can take to participate in STEM Works, and a conversion charter is not necessarily required.

Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special School District, is interested in STEM Works. He’s not yet sure how the district will accomplish that.

Guess notified the state by last Friday’s deadline that his district may apply for conversion charters to turn Mills University Studies High and the newly opened Maumelle High into STEM Works schools.

“Just as a fail-safe we submitted letters of interest as a placeholder while we try to decide what we really want to do or even if we want to do anything,” Guess said.

In addition to Lincoln and Pulaski County Special, other school districts sending letters of intent to apply for a state charter to facilitate a stronger emphasis on science, math and technology at middle- and high-school levels are the Dumas, Gravette, Greenwood, Jonesboro, Marked Tree, McGehee, Mena and Russellville school districts.

Additionally, the Cross County School District is applying for a charter for a proposed Elementary Technology Academy to serve grades kindergarten through six.

The Elkins, Hope, Osceola and Warren school districts also sent notice of forthcoming applications for charter schools that would serve elementary-school grades and, in come cases, both elementary and high-school grades. Some of those tentative plans also include some emphasis on technology.

Arkansas, Pages 10 on 09/07/2011

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