District's future in the balance as board meets

The Arkansas Board of Education will meet today to set a course for the future of the Little Rock School District and six of its 48 schools that have been classified by the state as academically distressed because of chronically low test scores.

WATCH LIVE: Education Board meeting.

The nine-member state board voted at a meeting Jan. 8 that it would decide at today's special 10 a.m. meeting what, if any, action to take in the state's largest district because of those six schools in which fewer than half of students scored at proficient levels on state math and literacy exams over a three-year period.

The six schools at the heart of the issue are Baseline Elementary; Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools; and J.A. Fair, Hall and McClellan high schools. They are among 26 academically distressed schools in the state.

Today's meeting, which can be viewed online, will be the culmination of 2½ weeks of online petition-signing and letter-writing by those for and against the state assuming control of the 24,800-student district.

The majority of the Little Rock School Board is opposed to a takeover of the district and also would prefer to retain control of the six schools while continuing to work in partnership with the state to improve them. The board has indicated a willingness to vacate all jobs at the schools and require staff members to reapply for their jobs with the assumption that not all would be rehired.

Some of the state and city business leaders -- including the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce -- have urged the Education Board to take control of the district as a way to raise achievement throughout the district and to oversee the large budget reductions that will be necessary because of the discontinuation of $37 million a year in state desegregation aid after the 2017-18 school year.

"I expect a vote anytime we have an agenda item," state Education Board Chairman Sam Ledbetter of Little Rock said Tuesday evening about today's session, which is expected to draw a large crowd of speakers and observers.

"I do expect action to be taken of some sort; I guess I would be surprised if there wasn't action taken," Ledbetter said. "I have no idea what that is ultimately going to look like. I mean we can all speculate. Certain members have indicated more clearly than others as to their sentiments about this."

As chairman, Ledbetter -- who is one of three board members who reside in Little Rock -- only votes if his vote affects the outcome. Typically, the chairman votes to break what would otherwise be a tie vote.

Other members of the board are Vice Chairman Toyce Newton of Crossett, Joe Black of Newport, Alice Mahony of El Dorado, Mireya Reith of Fayettville, Vicki Saviers of Little Rock, Jay Barth of Little Rock, Diane Zook of Melbourne, and Kim Davis of Fayetteville.

Arkansas law gives the state Education Board a number of options for dealing with low-performing schools, including the authority to remove the principal and/or faculty at an academically distressed school, require a new curriculum, remove the school from the district's jurisdiction, close the school, and/or take control of the school district, which can include removing the superintendent and/or the locally elected school board.

Should the state board take over the Little Rock district, it will only be the second state takeover of a district for academic distress. The state has taken control of far more districts -- including the neighboring Pulaski County Special School District -- for fiscal distress, and some for failing to meet state accreditation standards.

The state board took over the Lee County district last year because of low achievement. In that case the entire district was classified as being in academic distress, not just certain campuses.

Taking over the operation of individual schools would be a first for the state Education Board.

The question of a takeover of the entire district is likely to be debated at today's meeting.

Chris Heller, an attorney for the Little Rock School District, submitted written arguments to the Education Board last week contending that the law calls for the takeover of the district in cases where the district administration or school board have impeded efforts to raise achievement at troubled schools.

Heller has said that the Little Rock School District has not been classified as a district in distress and that the School Board and administration have a long history of working with the state Department of Education to improve the achievement at the targeted schools.

As recently as this school year, the district and six schools tailored school improvement plans to recommendations made by the Education Department's school improvement specialists after their September visits to the campuses.

Richard Wilde, director of school improvement for the state agency, said earlier this month that the schools were putting into place research-based initiatives to raise achievement but were trying to do too much at one time. The six schools selected just two initiatives each to focus on this year. Those vary by school but include developing pre- and post- tests for curriculum units to determine student progress.

The state Education Department staff is not planning to make a recommendation to the Education Board on which actions, if any, it should take, agency spokesman Kimberly Friedman said Tuesday.

"Those decisions will be entirely up to the state board," she said.

She also said that the agency leaders continue to believe that the Education Board has full legal authority to take any of the actions listed in Arkansas Code Annotated 6-15-430, or to take no action at all.

"We stand ready to answer any questions the State Board members may have, and we will abide by any decisions the board makes. Whatever the outcome, our goal will remain to ensure every student in Arkansas receives a quality education," Friedman said in an email response to a question about Heller's position on the takeover.

John Riggs IV, president of J.A. Riggs Tractor Co. and a former Little Rock School Board member, has pushed for several months for a state takeover. He said Tuesday that "a lot of what we wanted to do got accomplished, which was start the conversation about what kind of education system we want in Little Rock. We have a failing one. What can we do to improve it?"

Some of the business community has started an online petition drive asking the state to make "bold" changes. A total of 1,190 have signed it.

District parent Barclay Key and others organized another online petition, signed by more than 600, opposing the state takeover.

Key said Tuesday that he doesn't trust the state Education Department and its board, nor the "wealthy elite in this city who have long benefited from maintaining the status quo."

He said the Little Rock district is not distressed and "the state has no record of saving distressed schools. The state of Arkansas does not have a legal basis for displacing our elected local school board."

"Local people know how best to fix local problems," he said.

The special Education Board meeting will be in the auditorium of the Arkansas Department of Education, 4 Capitol Mall. The auditorium is relatively small but the department typically broadcasts the meeting in the lobby and in overflow rooms in another part of the building.

The Education Department also is planning to video-stream the meeting so that it can be viewed in real time on the Internet.

Live video streaming of the meeting will be available at http://flash.aetn.org/adeplayer.html?source=rtmp://flash.aetn.org/live/adelive&type=live.

The video of the meeting also will be posted on the state Department of Education's website soon after the completion of the meeting for public viewing. That video will be in the 2015 archived minutes/video link.

The agenda for the meeting is available at http://edboard.arkansas.gov.

A section on 01/28/2015