Saturday classes, a summer residential program on college campuses and scholarship incentives are the components of a Pulaski County Special School District proposal sent Friday to a federal judge as a supplement to the district's desegregation plan.
The district and the Joshua intervenors, who are black students in the district, are asking U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. to approve the district's participation in an expanded version of what is now a University of Arkansas at Little Rock initiative to help high school students overcome academic and socioeconomic barriers to college enrollment.
The Dr. Charles W. Donaldson Scholars Academy initiative is the ongoing work of Donaldson, a vice chancellor emeritus at UALR.
If the amendment to the district's Desegregation Plan 2000 is approved, the district would redirect $10 million of its state desegregation aid to UALR and Philander Smith College to provide once-a-month Saturday classes during the school year plus summer residential programs on their campuses for struggling Pulaski County Special district students.
Successful completion of the program, which could be instituted as soon as this summer for approximately 250 of the district's graduating Class of 2014, would entitle students to scholarships of as much as $2,500 to either of the two campuses this fall.
"Our goal is to improve the achievement of all students, with special attention to African-American students and others who are at-risk of academic failure due to socioeconomic disadvantages and other factors," Jerry Guess, the superintendent of district, said Friday at a news conference about the proposal.
"I'm proud to be able to sit here and say our students are fixing to have a tremendous advantage," Guess said.
The initiative is intended to demonstrate the district's good faith in addressing the disparity in achievement that has traditionally existed between black and white students in the district and throughout much of the nation, Guess said.
The Pulaski County Special district is the only one of the three districts in Pulaski County that remains under federal court supervision of its compliance with its desegregation plan. The district to date is still being monitored in areas including compliance to plan provisions dealing with student achievement, student discipline, special education and the condition of its schools.
The district would pay for the college-preparation program at a rate of $3.3 million a year for the next three years.
The money would come from savings created by eliminating teacher and support-staff jobs and programs that were required by the district's 1989 desegregation plan but are no long mandated, Guess said.
Earlier this year, the district notified more than 40 teachers and members of the support staff that their jobs were being eliminated, creating a savings of more than $1.5 million. Those include the technology and communications staff at Clinton and Crystal Hill Magnet elementary schools, a dozen home-school consultants, and teachers of the district's soon-to-be-discontinued Saturday program for students who had behavior problems.
The district is also changing its scheduling of students in middle and high school courses to move the student-to-teacher ratios in the district closer to the maximum allowed by state standards and thereby reduce the needed number of teaching positions through retirements and resignations.
Still other cost-saving efforts include combining bus routes so that students attending two or three schools might all ride the same bus.
Guess said the positions under the old desegregation plan have to be eliminated because state desegregation aid payments of $20 million a year to the district will cease after the 2017-18 school year as a result of an agreement negotiated with the state and approved in January by Marshall.
Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, a civil-rights attorney who represents the Joshua intervenors in what is now a 31-year-old federal school desegregation lawsuit, said he had been disappointed by promising student achievement programs in the past but is hopeful that this college-preparation program will fulfill its potential.
"This is a unique approach to trying to address the failures of the students and the district and others in addressing the needs of students who are of need -- who are largely African-American," Walker said.
Walker said the proposed plan is not meant to relieve district leaders of any of their desegregation obligations "but obliges them to do more and do some things differently."
Joel Anderson, chancellor of UALR, said the Donaldson Summer Bridge Academy, under the direction of Donaldson; Logan Hampton, vice provost for student affairs; and Amber Smith, program director, has a proven success record and makes it likely that the district dollars will be well spent.
In the first year of the the academy, 95 percent of the 43 participating students were able to bypass a remedial math course.
"It gives a boost to students who need a boost to be successful in college," Anderson said. "Given the immense importance of a college education as our country and world move through the 21st century, it's awfully important that we make education opportunities at the college level real for all students. For those students who need a boost, we are obliged to give them a boost."
The college-preparation program has two broad components, including a three-week residential program for graduating high school seniors and four-day programs for ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders on the Philander Smith or UALR campuses. The other arm of the program is the once-a-month Saturday classes that will start for the ninth grade in the fall, if the program is approved by the judge.
The curriculum for the Saturday and summer sessions would use a variety of teaching strategies that meet the different learning styles of the students.
Students' academic deficiencies would be identified and strategies developed to address their needs. A student success plan would be developed for each student.
The students would be assigned mentors and efforts made to convey to students the importance of college and high school course selections. Study skills would be taught. Students would annually take the ACT college entrance exam. One of the purposes of the program is to ensure that college freshmen will not have to take remedial noncredit math and English courses because of low ACT scores.
The money would be paid to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Foundation, which would be the program administrator.
The academic and support provisions would be managed jointly by UALR and Philander Smith College.
The desegregation money that would be directed to the college preparation program could be supplemented over time with grants and other funding sources, which could also be used to pay for the program after desegregation aid ends.
The district would be committed to participating for at least three years past the point in which the federal judge determines that the district is unitary or in compliance with the student achievement provisions of the desegregation plan, according to the motion for approval to the judge.
Successful completion of the program would be necessary to be eligible for scholarships.
Walker said the program is for all high school students who are in need of enhanced learning opportunities and support; that could be as many as 8,000 to 10,000 students during a four-year period.
"We're not releasing the district from its obligation to better teach these children with better outcomes," Walker said. "The only thing we are doing is trying to show the students who have gotten into the pipeline and have not achieved and may already think of themselves as failures that there is hope. There are benefits if they cooperate and if they take initiatives on their own."
A Section on 05/24/2014