LR program a classroom without walls

In trial, kids take their studies on the road at county’s cultural, historic sites

Clinton School of Public Service student Julian Kelly speaks Tuesday evening at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center during a news conference to introduce the new Learning Pass program. The program will provide middle school students with hands-on learning opportunities in the community.
Clinton School of Public Service student Julian Kelly speaks Tuesday evening at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library and Learning Center during a news conference to introduce the new Learning Pass program. The program will provide middle school students with hands-on learning opportunities in the community.

The Pulaski County boundary lines will constitute the classroom walls for Little Rock Preparatory Academy charter school pupils who are selected to participate next year in a new, off-campus experiential learning program called Learning Pass.

Approximately 25 seventh- and eighth-graders picked for the pilot program will spend their mornings in traditional academic classes at their campus on South University Avenue.

But their afternoon classes - four days a week over the course of the school year - will be held at more than a dozen locations including the Museum of Discovery, the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, the Plantation Agriculture Museum in Scott, First Tee of Central Arkansas and the Painting with a Twist of Little Rock.

Learning Pass is a joint venture of the Clinton School of Public Service and Exalt Education, which is a nonprofit organization affiliated with the charter school. Four graduate students at the Clinton School have developed partnerships between the school and community organizations to create what could be the first-of-its kind learning opportunity for the students at the academy and, ultimately, at other schools.

“When we started talking to Little Rock Preparatory Academy, it was very clear that they were extremely dedicated to developing new learning opportunities for their students, ” Allison Meyer, one of the Clinton students, said at the pilot’s announcement Tuesday evening at the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library.

“They were willing to completely revamp their education model … to provide the necessary resources, staff, teachers, transportation in order to make these partnerships happen,” Meyer said. “And they were adamant that this was going to be an innovative program, not just a fancy field trip.”

The school and the organizations signed memoranda of understanding spelling out the instruction and resources the organizations will provide and the responsibilities of the school, faculty and pupils. The resources provided by the partner organizations will be at no cost or a greatly reduced cost to the school, Meyer said.

Tia Townsend, an employee at the school, will be the coordinator of the initiative at the school.

Katy Grennier, another of the Clinton team of students, described the activities that each of the partner organizations will provide, such as building machines at the Museum of Discovery, observing bees and honey making at the Dunbar Community Garden Project, working in a greenhouse at the Hillary Clinton Library, performing historical theater at the Old State House Museum of Arkansas, differentiating among musical instruments with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and even critiquing the policy decisions of a former president at the William J.Clinton Presidential Center.

Grennier said she and her team -- including Brad Cameron and Julian Kelly - found that the community organizations were ready and willing to participate.

“When I approached the First Tee, they said, ‘We have actually been waiting to do that. We have curriculum,’” Grennier recalled. “That was the answer we received from most of our partners, which was a beautiful thing for us,” she said.

Benjamin Lindquist, chief executive officer of Exalt Education and executive director of Little Rock Preparatory Academy, said the concept and partnerships were more than a year in the development.

“We really believe that the Learning Pass initiative represents the best of what is possible in public education,” Lindquist said. “It’s about art, cultural and educational institutions coming together to serve the children and youth of Little Rock - to provide them with a learning experience that they’ve never had before.”

He called the idea for the Learning Pass “the brainchild” of Sheree Speakman, founder of the CIE Learning organization, which supports the goals of social justice and deeper student learning. Speakman is also a former evaluation director for the Walton Family Foundation.

The formation of the initiative was based on a “big tent strategy” of bringing people together and not separating people along different education agendas, Lindquist said. After the pilot 2014-15 school year, he said he hopes Learning Pass can be expanded to other students in other schools in central Arkansas.

Other partner organizations include the Center for Arkansas History and Culture, Junior Achievement of Arkansas, Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub/The Launch Pad, TRIO Educational Opportunity Center, and Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center.

Arkansas, Pages 10 on 04/23/2014

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