Panel OKs school's bid to exit network

District charter cites ‘glass ceiling’

The state's Charter Authorizing Panel on Wednesday approved a request from Lincoln High School to drop the school's affiliation with the national New Tech Network -- a decision now subject to state Board of Education review.

The panel's decision on the charter amendment for the Lincoln School District's conversion charter high school was one of a handful of charter amendments adopted by the panel, which is made up of top-level staff members at the Arkansas Department of Education.

Lincoln High School New Tech was approved as a district-operated charter school in January 2011 for the 2011-12 school year. It is one of about 15 schools in Arkansas that contracted with the New Tech Network, a nonprofit, California-based organization that supports member schools in using hands-on projects and one-to-one student-to-device technology to provide students with relevant, interdisciplinary instruction.

The network also provides an online learning management system through which teachers, students and parents can find project plans and resources, and otherwise share ideas. Teachers also can use the network for posting student assignments and recording student grades and other data.

"We are going to continue to be a project-based learning school," Deon Birks, the school's assistant principal and athletic director, told the state panel in asking to drop the affiliation with New Tech.

"We feel we have reached a glass ceiling with the network. We have built the capacity and we've stopped. We're kind of stuck there. We want to move forward using local businesses, universities and technical institutions to connect our kids with the careers that are out there," Birks said.

The school's four-year contract with the New Tech Network expired at the end of June.

The $45,000-per-year fee paid by the school to the network will be redirected to student programs including transportation to job sites for student internships, as well as to ongoing training for staff, including their attendance at education conferences, Birks said.

Krista Clark, a spokesman for the network, said in a telephone interview later Wednesday that the number of schools in the network is growing annually. In the previous school year, the network was made up of about 150 schools in 25 states and Australia. That total will grow to about 180 schools in 30 states and in Australia and China the new school year, Clark said.

"We do see the schools leave the network from time to time," she said. "It's usually for a couple of reasons -- either funding, which is the biggest reason, or a change in leadership. We don't see it in schools that have been practicing with fidelity to the model but I'm not sure what is going on with [Lincoln High].

Clark said that after four years of affiliation between a school and the network -- which is the length of a contract -- the project-based learning features at a school "should be sustainable."

The Charter Authorizing Panel members asked questions about the proposed changes at the Lincoln campus, which serves about 550 students in grades eight through 12.

Ivy Pfeffer, assistant commissioner for human resources and licensure and a panel member, said she had some concerns about the loss of support provided to the school by the New Tech Network.

"I think you have a concept. I don't think you have the plan yet," Pfeffer said about the school's future.

She urged school leaders to use the time between now and their application next year for a charter renewal to identify business partners for student internships and to design the student day.

The charter panel's decision will be reviewed by the state Education Board in August.

Also on Wednesday, the Charter Authorizing Panel approved increasing the maximum first-year enrollment at the Ozark Montessori Academy, a new charter school in Springdale, from 120 to 140. The panel also waived a requirement that the Pea Ridge Manufacturing and Business Academy, another conversion charter school, establish and staff a library/media center apart from the library at Pea Ridge High School.

The 20 additional pupils at the Ozark Montessori Academy will be accommodated by enlarging student counts in existing classrooms. No additional teachers will be hired, but teacher assistants will be employed to help accommodate the increase. The school will serve kindergarten through sixth grade to start but will add seventh and eighth grades in time.

Charlie Clark, director of the Pea Ridge Academy, said the school was cited earlier by the state Education Department for not having a library and media specialist. He asked for the waiver of the requirement for the library, saying that academy students have easy, daily access to the Pea Ridge High School library. The academy students must pass by the high school library to get to the cafeteria for school meals.

Metro on 07/16/2015

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