Panel opts to review change in school site

Sponsor: Delay will hinder opening

Correction: Interstate 430 is east of the proposed location for Quest Middle School of West Little Rock. A map published Friday and March 22 showing the school’s proposed location misidentified the interstate.

The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday withheld its support for a proposed change in location for the new Quest Middle School of west Little Rock, voting instead to hold a hearing on the plan next month.


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The board’s 6-1 vote to review a state charter panel’s earlier approval of the address change makes the planned August opening of the school more difficult, James Taylor, the chief financial officer of Responsive Education Solutions, said after the meeting.

“We have 180 students who have enrolled,” Taylor said. “We want to make preparations to the facility, and we wish to hire teachers. If we have to wait until May for a decision, we will have less than 90 days away from opening the school, which makes it very challenging for us.”

Taylor said it is likely that the charter school sponsors will ask for a special, earlier meeting to handle the review by the board, which also acted on other charter school business Thursday.

Responsive Education Solutions of Lewisville, Texas, received state Education Board approval in January for the independently operated, public charter school to be located at 1815 Rahling Road on the western edge of Little Rock. But the charter school sponsors were unable to negotiate a final agreement on improvements to the Rahling Road site and came back to the state with a proposal to locate the school in a building the company would purchase at 400 Hardin Road, near the intersection of Interstate 630 and Shackleford Road.

The Department of Education’s Charter Authorizing Panel, whose members include Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell and other top-level department staff, unanimously approved the address change over the objections of Hardin Road businesses and a property owner, as well as the Little Rock School District. The businesses said Hardin Road, which is a cul de sac, was inadequate to support the traffic that would be generated by the school.

The Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts have opposed the school plan since its inception. The charter school would compete with those districts for students.

Chris Heller, an attorney for the Little Rock district, on Thursday asked the Education Board to review the Charter Authorizing Panel’s decision on the Hardin Road site.

Heller told the board that the charter school sponsors had represented to the Education Board that the Rahling Road site was “optimal and ideal” but knew at that time that the school site for 490 students was going to change.

He said that school organizers have said the Hardin Road site would serve 280 students.

“We don’t think someone should come in and ask for a charter at a place where they never had the capability to do business. They never secured that location. Then they come in and do something completely different than what the board approved.”

Heller said the board should either change the charter to reflect the lower enrollment that can be handled at the site or reject the move since it is not what the board originally approved.

Taylor told the board that there is no state prohibition against serving a number of students below the cap set in a school’s charter. He also said that the charter authorizing panel was told that the school sponsors would in year three of the school’s operation either expand at the Hardin Road site or obtain the panel’s approval to move either the entire school or obtain approval to put the high school at a different site.

Taylor said there were many advantages to the Hardin Road site. The building’s zoning allows it to be used as a school. The occupancy of the building is in excess of 700. The school plans to share the building with other tenants, including the Arkansas Banking Department. Additionally,the purchase of the Hardin Road site represents $245,000 in savings as compared with the $496,000 annual cost of leasing the Rahling site.

Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock made the motion, with no discussion, to review the address issue at the board’s next meeting. Besides Barth, board members Sam Ledbetter, Vicki Saviers, Toyce Newton, Alice Mahony and Mireya Reith voted for the review.

Board member Diane Zook voted against it, and board Chairman Brenda Gullett did not vote.

Barth said later that enough questions were raised about the change that a hearing was justified.

Zook is the aunt of Gary Newton, executive director of Arkansas Learns. Newton was a leader in the effort last year to recruit Responsive Education to open a charter school in northwest Little Rock, near Roberts Elementary School, which is distant from any existing public middle schools.

The Hardin Road address is several miles east of Rahling Road and within about 2 miles of Little Rock’s Henderson Middle School and the Lisa Academy charter school. Newton has continued to support the development of the school despite its proposed move toward the center of the city.

Newton said the board’s decision could possibly deny final approval until as late as July or August. He called it a “pocket veto” by the Little Rock and Pulaski County Special districts of a school that was duly authorized by the state.

Also on Thursday, the Education Board finalized the Charter Authorizing Panel’s earlier approval of amendments to the following charter schools:

Benton County School for the Arts in Rogers. The school will be renamed as the Arkansas Arts Academy, effective July 1. The school, which is authorized to serve 850 students in kindergarten through 12th grades, is also newly approved to waive the state law that requires a school to provide a duty-free lunch for teachers.

Arkansas Virtual Academy. The school, which is based in North Little Rock and is authorized to serve 3,000 students online throughout the state, received waivers to state laws and rules that will enable it to add ninth and 10th grades to its existing kindergarten-through-eighth-grade program. State laws and rules requiring a school library, employment of a licensed health professional, the provision of alternative education services and a maximum cap of 150 students per high school teacher are waived for the school.

Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy in Bentonville, Premier High School of Little Rock and Quest Middle School of Pine Bluff. The schools, all operated by Responsive Education Solutions of Lewisville, Texas, received waivers of a state law that requires the boards of directors for the schools to be physically present at board meetings.

On a related matter, the Education Board on Thursday received enrollment and financial reports for the three Responsive Education Solutions-sponsored charter schools that opened this school year in Bentonville, Little Rock and Pine Bluff.

The Northwest Arkansas Classical Academy, which is serving kindergarten through eighth grades in Bentonville, has an enrollment cap of 445 and was serving 394 students as of December. The Quest Middle School of Pine Bluff, approved to serve 220 in fifth through eighth grades, started the year with 100 students and reported 75 in January.

Of particular concern to the board were the figures for the Premier High School of Little Rock, approved to serve as many as 240 students in grades nine through 12 on the campus of Arkansas Baptist College. Premier had a December enrollment of 73, down from the initial enrollment of 120.

State aid to the charter schools is based on enrollment. If enrollment projections fall short, state aid payments are decreased and can put a school in jeopardy of insufficient funds to finish the school year.

Taylor told the board that the drop in enrollment was in large part because about 45 students who signed up to attend the school during the summer registration period never actually showed up.

Taylor told the state Education Board that Responsive Education Solutions is committed to financially supporting the Premier and Quest schools and will not close them despite the diminished enrollment and state financial aid.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/11/2014

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