The Imboden Area Charter School, the state’s third-oldest open-enrollment charter school and its smallest in terms of enrollment, received a green light from the state Monday to operate for another three years.
The Arkansas Board of Education voted unanimously to grant the renewal of the school’s charter, voicing concerns about the small enrollment but also calling the school unique because of its rural, remote location and its willingness to work with a relatively high percentage of pupils with special-education needs who may also be from low-income families.
School leaders had asked for a 10-year renewal.
Also Monday, the state Education Board accepted the surrender of the conversion charter granted to Paragould School District’s Oak Grove Elementary in 2009.
The state board’s actions on the Imboden and Oak Grove charters are expected to be the last of their kind under the state’s current charter-school law, which subjects charter-school applications, renewals, revocations and surrenders to state Education Board approval.
Act 509, which was adopted by lawmakers earlier this year and will go into effect in mid-August, makes the state Department of Education the designated authorizer of charter schools. The agency’s decisions, however, may still be reviewed by the state Education Board - but only upon request by the charter-school planners, a state board member or an affected school district.
The Imboden Area Charter School’s enrollment fluctuated between 40 and 56 students in kindergarten through eighth grades in the school year that just ended. That school, which provides free school bus transportation, is approved to serve as many as 150 students.
“I don’t worry about the numbers but about serving the students that we do have very well,” Judy Warren, director of the school since its founding in 2002, told the state board in response to questions.
Warren said that despite the small size, the school is projected to be financially solvent in the coming year with even a minimal increase in enrollment.
Open-enrollment charter schools, like traditional public school districts, receive state foundation aid on a per-student basis. The more students a charter school has, the more money it receives.
The Imboden school serves students in four multistage classrooms. Kindergarten and first grade are grouped together, as are second and third grades, fourth and fifth grades, and sixth through eighth grades, an organization model that Warren said promotes student achievement.
“We have a unique delivery system that is highly individualized for each student, and when we combine this system with our small family atmosphere … students gain character and self confidence and, with that, the desire to achieve,” Warren said,
The school has met yearly accreditation standards, hasa state-approved special-education program and has routinely received clean annual financial audits, Warren said. She also said students have shown academic progress.
Gary Ritter, director of the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, spoke on the school’s behalf about academic achievement as compared with the surrounding Sloan-Hendrix School District and the state as a whole.
“In literacy, you see progress at roughly the same pace as the rest of the state and the surrounding region,” Ritter said about the school, which showed a gain of 13 points in the percentage of students scoring at proficient or better between 2008-09 and 2011-12. The school went from 60 percent proficient to 73 percent.
That was done with a student body in which 80 percent of the students are from low-income families and 23 percent are identified as requiring special-education services, he said.
The state - in which 60 percent of students qualify for subsidized school meals based on low family income - grew by 14 percentage points in literacy to 82 percent proficient or better in the same period.
The nearby Sloan-Hendrix School District grew by 16 percentage points to 79 percent proficient or better with an enrollment in which 65 percent of the students are from low-income families.
In math, the Imboden charter school grew by 15 points to 55 percent proficient or better, while the state grew 5 points to 78 percent and Sloan Hendrix grew by 3 percentage points to 75 percent proficient or better between 2009-12.
The board approved the three-year renewal at Imboden based on the recommendation of the Education Department’s charter advisory council.
Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell said the council recommended three years instead of the requested 10 years because of concerns about the size and finances for the school.
Regarding the request from the Paragould School District to voluntarily surrender the conversion charter for the Oak Grove Elementary Health, Wellness and Environmental Science School, Superintendent Debbie Smith said the district is reorganizing its elementary grades and cutting expenses.
The district is opening a new kindergarten and firstgrade primary school, leaving only grades two through four at the Oak Grove campus, Smith said. Additionally, two people teaching special courses related to the charter program have either resigned or moved to another position in the district. The vacancies won’t be filled, Smith said, as a way to trim costs.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 06/11/2013