The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday classified 26 schools as academically distressed, the first time it has singled out individual campuses -- rather than entire districts -- for the designation, which carries sanctions.
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The board labeled the schools because fewer than half of their students scored at proficient or better levels on state Benchmark and End of Course exams over a three-year time period, 2011-13.
Parents of children in the affected schools -- which include ones in the Little Rock, Pulaski County Special and Pine Bluff districts -- will now have the opportunity to seek transfers to other, higher-performing schools for their children for the coming 2014-15 school year. The districts are responsible for at least a portion of the transportation costs for those students who transfer.
The state board classified the schools as academically distressed based on emergency rules adopted at its April 10 meeting and on state laws passed by the 2013 General Assembly.
The rules state that a school identified as being in academic distress has no more than five years to raise achievement and earn removal of the distressed label.
At any time within that five years, the state board may take action against the school. That can include requiring the reorganization or the reassignment of the school staff; putting in new curriculum and staff training; removing the principal; waiving some state laws that deal with schools; removing the school from the jurisdiction of the school district; closing the school; and removing the superintendent and/or school board.
The rules state that if in the second year of academic distress the school is not making sufficient progress, the state education commissioner can appoint a community advisory board to serve under the direction of the commissioner.
At the end of five years if the problems aren't corrected, the Education Board must, by law, either annex, consolidate or reconstitute the school before July 1 of the next school year.
The academic-distress label can only be removed from a school by a vote of the state Education Board upon certification from the state Department of Education staff that the school has corrected its deficiencies.
Initially, the Education Department staff recommended that 32 schools -- including six alternative-education schools -- be classified as academically distressed.
Representatives of those schools appealed Thursday, telling the board that the alternative schools focus on students who are not successful in regular schools and in many cases attend the alternative programs in lieu of dropping out of school.
Benny Gooden, superintendent of the Fort Smith School District, told the state Education Board that the Fort Smith School Board "deserves high marks" for caring enough for students to operate the Belle Pointe Alternative Center, even though the center for students is not likely to ever exceed the 49.5 percent proficient rate required by the state rules to avoid classification.
The center is a last resort school for students who are discipline problems, low-achieving, teen parents, in legal trouble, or who have mental-health problems, he said. One of the goals of Belle Pointe is to help the students reach a point when they can return to regular school, which sometimes happens but not always, he said.
"You need to be praising alternative schools and boards of education rather than targeting them," Gooden said.
Questioned about the justification for including alternative schools in the consideration for academic-distress labels, Education Commissioner Tony Wood said that there is a concern that school districts would assign low-performing students to alternative schools for the purpose of boosting the achievement rates of traditional schools.
But Wood also said that giving an academic-distress designation to an alternative school where teachers are serving students with great needs "isn't beneficial to anyone."
Annette Barnes, the Education Department's new assistant commissioner for accountability, said many of the alternative schools in the state have "Local Education Agency" numbers just like traditional schools. As a result, their student scores were evaluated for the potential academic-distress classification.
She said the Hot Springs and Cabot school districts have now asked to give up the "Local Education Agency" numbers for their alternative-education schools to avoid future classification as distressed.
"We have an issue of accountability," board member Vicki Saviers of Little Rock said. "How do we gauge progress for those kids?"
Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock wondered if lowering the required percentage for proficiency would be an option for the alternative school.
Board member Mireya Reith of Fayetteville and Diane Zook of Melbourne said that each of the alternative schools is different and needs to be examined individually.
Belinda Shook, superintendent of the Beebe School District that is home to the Badger Academy alternative-education program -- initially recommended for the distress label -- told the board that there are other indicators of student performance in the special-program schools.
Measures used at Badger Academy include the General Educational Development exam and a career technical exam.
In her letter appealing the distress designation, Shook said that the academy "has seen great success and has been the impetus behind the graduation of many at-risk students."
"If this is the only measure for a school of this sort, instead of reaping the negative publicity, the district might be better off to abandon the [alternative learning program/charter school]," Shook wrote about the academic-distress label. "However, this would not be best for the population of students served by the school, which is the reason it was established."
Zook made the motion to table any decision on classifying alternative-education schools until the matter -- including different measures -- can be researched.
The board on Thursday denied the academic-distress appeal made by Marvell-Elaine High School, which missed the 49.5 percent proficient mark for the three-year average by 0.53 percent.
Principal Adrian Watkins asked the board to take into account the gains the school has made in recent years and she predicted that the school's scores for the spring of 2014 would result in the removal of the distress label. Those final results for 2014 won't be available until November.
Watkins said that the high school is classified as an "achieving" school under the federal government-approved school accountability plan for the state of Arkansas. The accountability plan is also known as the state's Elementary and Secondary Education Act flexibility or waiver plan.
"These dual designations are conflicting and confusing to all of us," Watkins said.
Saviers, who made the motion to deny the appeal, told Watkins that she is "so amazed at the progress" in the Marvell-Elaine district where people "dug in and got it done." She congratulated the district on the gains and said she hoped other districts in the Delta region of the state would use Marvell-Elaine as a model district.
She said she would love to grant the appeal but feared it would set the wrong precedent.
The schools that are now classified as academically distressed include Augusta High, Blytheville High New Tech, Covenant Keepers Charter School in Little Rock, Dollarway High, and Fordyce High.
Stephens High in the Stephens School District is classified as academically distressed but the school has been closed and the district has been divided among three other school districts for the coming year.
Forrest City High, Forrest City Junior High and Lincoln Academy of Excellence in Forrest City are designated as schools in academic distress, as is Central High in Helena-West Helena School District, Marvell-Elaine High, Osceola High, Strong High in the Strong-Huttig School District, and Watson Chapel High.
Also classified are Baseline Elementary, Cloverdale Middle, Henderson Middle, J.A. Fair High, Hall High and McClellan High in the Little Rock School District, Belair Middle Oak Park Elementary and Pine Bluff High in the Pine Bluff School District, and Harris Elementary, Jacksonville High and Wilbur D. Mills High in the Pulaski County Special School District.
Metro on 07/11/2014