Forum to focus on LR district, woes
Little Rock School Board members Joy Springer and Jim Ross will lead a public meeting titled “Community Forum to Protect our Little Rock Schools” at 6 p.m. Monday in the Willie Hinton Neighborhood Resource Center Auditorium at 12th and Oak streets in Little Rock.
The forum, planned in cooperation with the Arkansas Community Organizations, is billed as an opportunity for people to talk about their experiences with the district’s schools and about the possible state takeover of the school district.
The Arkansas Board of Education is holding a meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday to determine how best to raise student achievement in six Little Rock schools that are classified as academically distressed because fewer than half their students scored at proficient levels on state tests over a three-year period.
The state board has the authority to replace the staffs at the schools, change the curriculum, remove the schools from the district’s jurisdiction, close the schools and take over the operation of the school district.
NEA president to speak on testing
Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, will visit two Little Rock School District schools and speak at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock on Feb. 2.
Garcia began her career in education as a school lunch lady and now leads the nation’s largest union of 3 million educators.
She is a critic of the standardized testing movement that she says is taking over the time students spend in the classroom and is being used as a weapon against their teachers, according to the Clinton School announcement on her appearance. She will talk on “The Civil Rights of the Whole Child for a Whole Education” at 6 p.m. in Sturgis Hall.
Anthony School students honored
Nineteen students from The Anthony School in Little Rock recently returned from performing in the 2015 Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, where they received the Freddie G. Award for Excellence in Dance.
The students, ages 12-15, presented selections from Disney’s The Little Mermaid Jr.
Additionally, Anthony School students Conrad Huslauer and Nora Johnson were named to the Junior Theater Festival All-Stars, which consists of two outstanding performers from each group attending the festival. The All-Stars performed a song during the closing ceremony for all 4,500 festival attendees.
The Junior Theater Festival allows students and teachers to interact with others who share their interests in musical theater. In addition to presenting a 15-minute selection from their musical, students and teachers participate in workshops led by Broadway and West End professionals.
Firm gets contract for programs audit
The Little Rock School Board last week approved a contract with Curriculum Management Systems Inc., of Johnston, Iowa, to audit the district’s secondary-school literacy program and its kindergarten-through-12th-grade math program.
The audit, set to be completed by the end of the school year, is being done in response to earlier questions by School Board members on whether the district’s curriculum is properly aligned with the new Arkansas education standards in math and literacy. The Arkansas Board of Education in 2010 adopted a set of standards that are common to those in nearly all of the 50 states.
The cost of the curriculum audit is not to exceed $84,500, according to the board motion, which was approved in a 7-0 vote.