Little Rock School District interim Superintendent Dexter Suggs has shown this week that his proposals for alterations at some schools next school year are at this point subject to change in discussion with parents.
Suggs and his staff met with about 60 Forest Park Elementary School parents at a hastily called noon session Thursday about the possible removal of pre-kindergarten classes at the campus next school year to make room for all the kindergartners who have preregistered for the school.
"We need your help," Suggs started out. "Whatever decision you make is the one we are going to go with," he told the group.
Elsewhere, a proposal to convert Rockefeller Elementary School into a pre-kindergarten center remains on the table, but Suggs has moved away from an accompanying plan to phase out within a year the school's infant and toddler care program. Also, Suggs said that infant and toddler program won't be suspended for the summer to allow for renovation elsewhere in the building -- a shift from an earlier plan.
Suggs is considering changes to the district operations that are meant to improve student achievement and make the district more financially efficient. He is doing that in consultation with the Arkansas Department of Education and Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who is Suggs' supervisor because the state Board of Education voted Jan. 28 to assume control of the district and remove the locally elected School Board.
Suggs has proposed vacating the staff and hiring new employees -- bilingual if possible -- at Baseline Elementary, and organizing all 48 schools into four kindergarten-through-12th grade academic zones under the direction of himself and three academic improvement officers.
Frederick Fields, the district's senior director for student services, told Forest Park parents on Thursday that more children from the school's attendance zone registered for kindergarten at Forest Park than there were seats in the three existing classrooms.
One option, he said, was to remove one of the two pre-kindergarten classes at the popular school to make room for a fourth kindergarten class. The pre-kindergarten pupils would be assigned to Fair Park Early Childhood Center or to another nearby school.
A second option was to keep the two pre-kindergarten classes intact at Forest Park and assign the surplus kindergarten children from the Forest Park attendance zone to other schools in the district for their elementary years.
Parent Conley Golden, the school's Parent Teacher Association president, questioned whether the district could reduce the number of classrooms for older pupils since larger pupil-to-teacher ratios are allowed in fourth and fifth grade rooms.
Fields checked his records and raised the possibility that the school could reduce the number of second-grade classrooms next year by one to permit the addition of a kindergarten class and retention of two pre-kindergarten classes.
"We may be able to work through this," he said.
The Forest Park parents also urged that the district undertake a more aggressive approach to auditing student addresses to ensure that children live in the attendance zones in which they register for school.
As for the Rockefeller issue, Suggs said he had taken time to look at the layout of the campus when he met with parents early one morning this week.
"We're not going to close the infant and toddler program this summer," he said later. "They are only using three rooms. Parents enter on the north side. We can keep that open in the summer. The construction will go on on the other side of the building."
He also said that the children in the infant and toddler program will be able to remain at the school at 700 E. 17th St. until they age out of the program.
As for the continuation of the infant and toddler program indefinitely, "We're going to look at that -- the possibility of maintaining it," he said.
Suggs said he met with a group of Rockefeller parents prior to a schoolwide parent forum Wednesday.
"They were very helpful. That was a good meeting. They have pledged to help, not only in this, but to be a sounding board for future endeavors," he said.
The Rockefeller Early Childhood Center Parent Teacher Association issued a news release after that meeting with Suggs, highlighting the plans for keeping the early childhood program open for the summer and allowing the infant and toddler program to continue for the time being.
Bill Kopsky, father of two children in the program and part of the parent group, said in the news release that the parents were appreciative that Suggs listened to their concerns.
"People have disparaged the parents in this district, but when they know how to be engaged, they really want to be engaged," Kopsky said and offered assistance to the district in developing ways to successfully involve the public in decision-making.
"The most important point we've made is that they need to stop making any policy decisions at all until they can lay out the process by which they are going to make decisions ... a transparent process that people can believe in," Kopsky said.
While the Rockefeller parents were pleased with the plans for the infants and toddlers, Kopsky said that parents would like to see the district delay by at least a year the conversion of the kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary program to a schoolwide early childhood education center.
That would give parents of current pupils the opportunity to select new schools through the district's open-enrollment registration period that takes place each January for the coming school year.
Metro on 04/17/2015