12:11 p.m. update
The Arkansas Board of Education voted Thursday to remove two districts and six other schools from being under academic distress after their scores improved.
The Lee County and Strong-Huttig school districts had been placed under academic distress when fewer than 49.5 percent of their students scored proficient or better on state math and literacy exams over three years.
But in the 2012-2014 school years, 49.51 percent of Lee County's students scored proficient or better, while 50.17 percent of Strong-Huttig students did.
The Lee County district remains under state control for now, though the board said it plans to consider next month returning it to local control.
Also removed from academic-distress status were:
- Augusta High School in the Augusta School District with 50.17 percent of students scoring proficient between 2012-2014
- Fordyce High School in the Fordyce School District with 56.28 percent
- Marvell-Elaine High School in the Marvel-Elaine School District with 51.66 percent
- Osceola High School in the Osceola School District with 52.35 percent
- Harris Elementary School in the Pulaski County Special School District with 50.83 percent.
- Jacksonville High School in the Pulaski County Special School District with 54.36 percent
The board later voted to place 22 other schools on academic distress, including a number that have previously been under the designation. Among them were the six Little Rock School District campuses whose academic-distress status led to the state last month taking over that district.
11:29 a.m. update
The Arkansas Board of Education denied an appeal of an academic distress designation for Blytheville Middle School but tabled several other appeals dealing with alternative-education schools.
The board at its Thursday meeting also granted an appeal of an academic distress label for Forest Heights Middle School in the Little Rock School District, though that campus no longer exists and the designation would not have applied to the reconstituted and reconfigured Forest Heights STEM Academy.
Officials with the Blytheville district told the board that the middle school should not be placed under academic distress despite its rate of students scoring proficient on state exams falling below 49.5 percent over three years because seven students over two of those years should have been classified as "highly mobile."
If that had been done, the scores would have exceeded that mark, Blytheville Middle School Principal Mike Wallace said, though the board voted unanimously to deny the appeal.
In Little Rock, the board voted to approve the appeal of academic distress for the shuttered Forest Heights Middle School.
"We feel like it's basically a moot point at this particular time," Superintendent Dexter Suggs told the panel.
The board tabled the rest of its appeals of academic distress designations, which all dealt with alternative-education schools. Annette Barnes, assistant commissioner for public school accountability, noted the board had done the same last year pending a review of academic distress policies that requires legislative action and hasn't yet been completed.
The board is expected later to consider formally removing six schools and two districts from academic distress status. It will also consider identifying 25 schools as meeting academic distress status, including six Little Rock School District campuses already on it.