Little Rock School District Superintendent Baker Kurrus said Thursday that he doesn't intend to add a new school in west Little Rock without a comprehensive building plan for the entire district.
Kurrus was responding to questions from the Arkansas Board of Education about middle and high schools in the state-controlled district that are at student-enrollment capacity and whether there is any potential for new space.
He acknowledged that he is being urged by people who live in the district to consider purchasing a vacant building off Arkansas 10 to convert into a middle school for students in the growing northwest part of the city.
But Kurrus said he won't even look at that former Leisure Arts building until the district can also address "the very severe needs we have in south-central Little Rock and southwest Little Rock."
"Before I step out on west Little Rock, I want to be able to tell the community, the friends that I live with, 'This is what we are doing everywhere,'" he said.
Unless state Education Department leaders and Education Board members -- who are his supervisors -- tell him otherwise, he continued, "I'm going to insist that we have a comprehensive, collaborative plan that makes sense over the long term. There is a little short-term pain associated with that, but I'm willing to take the hailstorm because I know it will blow over."
He said he is waiting for the district's Civic Advisory Committee to weigh in on how to address the building needs, which could happen after that group's Sept. 19 day-long work session.
But he said he has already formulated in his mind a plan for closing small and inefficient schools and building modern schools that can accommodate student needs in regard to technology, laboratories, and instruction in art and music.
"Our little old buildings are so quaint, and some of them are really nice," he said, "but they are not what we are looking for."
He cited Franklin Elementary on South Harrison Street as an example of a school that has had thousands of dollars in work done over the past couple of years but was built in 1949 and is inadequate as a modern school.
Gary Newton, executive director of the Arkansas Learns school-choice advocacy organization, said in a guest opinion column in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday that the city must decide whether it wants to grow and that if it does, the school system must be expanded to serve incoming families.
In an interview after Kurrus spoke to the Education Board, Newton said the Little Rock district lacks secondary-school capacity. That includes a lack of seats in the city's schools that are not labeled by the state as "academically distressed" because of low student achievement over a three-year period.
"The question becomes what is the quickest, most efficient and effective way to add those seats. My fellow parents are offering potential solutions," he said about the vacant Leisure Arts building.
"It's not the only solution, but it's at least offering a solution, not just presenting problems. If the leadership knows of a better way, we're all ears," he said. "The issue is not just the absence of secondary schools in one section of town, which has been a pervasive issue -- it's now systemwide."
Newton wondered whether there is existing space that could be used for schools elsewhere in the city, as there is in west Little Rock.
"The policy of the district has always been to ignore immediate needs under the guise that we can only do for one if we do for all," he said. "No organization or business, school district can ever function that way. Not every need is equal," he said.
On other related matters Kurrus told the Education Board on Thursday that the district is projected to grow by 656 students this school year over this time last year --that is if everybody who is currently signed up to attend the district schools shows up when classes begin for the year on Monday.
The district ended this past year with a $2.6 million increase to its approximately $40 million in reserve funds, Kurrus said. That increase is contrary to what he said was an expected $2 million dip into reserves for the year that just ended.
Kurrus, appointed by Education Commissioner Johnny Key on May 6 to head the troubled district, told the board that he is trying hard to build "direct lines of accountability" as a way to improve achievement and effectiveness in the state's largest school district.
In response to questions from Education Board member Diane Zook about the inability of students to transfer to desired schools, Kurrus said he's working hard to tell the stories of successful students in the district's schools that are labeled as academically troubled. He said he wants all schools to be schools that parents want their children to attend.
The district will rely this year on the results of interim student tests -- provided by The Learning Institute of Hot Springs -- to measure student achievement growth, Kurrus said.
Some consideration was given to using the ACT Aspire interim assessments, since students will take the ACT Aspire tests at the end of the school year. Key said state could not guarantee that the necessary contracts for those ACT interim tests would be in place in time for the Little Rock district to make use of those particular interim exams.
Key and members of the Education Board praised Kurrus for his work so far in the district.
"I've heard so many great things from parents," Education Board member Charisse Dean of Little Rock said. "Thank you so much for the positive energy you've interjected," she said.
Metro on 08/14/2015