Education notebook

Home-school files lacking, report says

The Arkansas Department of Education does not have testing records of about 13 percent of home-schooled students, according to a department report.

About 1,040 home-schooled students have no record of having been tested or excused from testing, according to the Education Department. Of the 8,102 in the department's testing database on home schooling, 220 are not expected to test either because of a permanent exemption, a temporary exemption or an excused absence. The state had nearly 17,300 home-schooled students during the 2013-14 school year.

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A listing of Pulaski County voting locations.

Education Board member Jay Barth of Little Rock asked what the department was doing to reduce that number because state law requires home-schooled students to test.

Bill Ballard, state coordinator for home-schooled student testing, said the superintendents of each school district have names of those students. The district heads will send letters to parents, laying out the testing requirements for those students according to state law.

The superintendents are also tasked with enforcing the testing truancy, Ballard said, adding that the power shouldn't be given to them. They don't have a choice of whether a child is home-schooled, he said.

Campaign promotes parent-teacher link

The Arkansas Department of Education and other public education advocacy groups are promoting more and better communication between parents and the teachers of their children through the new My Child/My Student campaign.

The campaign will give parents and teachers some topics and other resources for meaningful conversations about a child's academic progress.

Each month, the campaign link on the Arkansas Department of Education website will highlight a specific topic. Along with the topic, there will be tips, resources and links to other helpful websites for parents and teachers to consider and share. In addition to the website, the information will be available on Twitter and Facebook.

More information about the initiative is available on the My Child/My Student link on the Arkansas Department of Education website: www.arkansased.org/divisions/communications/my-childmy-student.

Early votes roll in for school elections

A total of 1,498 voters participated in early voting last week for Pulaski County school elections.

The elections are Tuesday in the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts.

The Little Rock and North Little Rock elections feature contested races for school board positions.

In the Pulaski County Special district, the voting is on the formation of a Jacksonville/North Pulaski County school district. Only residents in the proposed district can vote in that election.

There is one day left of early voting -- Monday -- at the Pulaski County Regional Building, 501 W. Markham St.

Metro on 09/14/2014

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