Seven traditional Arkansas school districts -- including Bentonville, Rogers and Harrison -- are the first to try out a new state law that allows them to apply for the kinds of legal waivers that were previously reserved for charter schools.
The seven pioneer districts are asking to be exempted from a variety of requirements, some of which deal with duty-free lunches for staff members; alternative learning environments for students not successful in regular classrooms; the hiring and firing of teachers and support staff; grading scales; and definitions of instructional time.
The other districts that sent in waiver requests this month were Armorel, Batesville, Osceola and Forrest City.
However, Batesville, Bentonville and Forrest City are now revising their original requests, said Mary Perry, an administrator in the Arkansas Department of Education's learning services division. And Melinda Moss, superintendent of the Harrison district, said Friday that her district may also need more time to fully develop its waiver proposal.
The first waiver applications could be acted on by the Arkansas Board of Education at the board's Aug. 13 meeting, which is before the start of the 2015-16 school year.
Perry said there is no set deadline per year for the waiver applications.
"Unless we get other procedures in place, they will come in at any time to me," Perry said.
The initial applications were reviewed by the Education Department's attorneys, prompting the need for revisions by some of the applicants, Perry said. That is to make sure the districts have listed all of the waivers they need -- by specific statute code or Education Department rule number -- to achieve their purposes.
Act 1240 of 2015 authorizes the district waivers.
The new law -- sponsored by state Rep. Reginald Murdock, D-Marianna, and others -- permits traditional school districts to apply for and receive the kinds of waivers to laws and rules that have been granted to independently operated, open-enrollment charter schools for about 15 years ago.
Charter schools are public schools run in accordance with the terms of a charter or a contract with the state Education Board. They are exempt from some of the rules and laws that govern traditional schools, but in return for the waivers and flexibility, the schools are supposed to be held accountable for their student achievement rates.
A traditional school district can now be considered for a waiver if at least one student who lives within that school district attends a charter school, according to the new law. There are 21 charter schools or charter-school systems in Arkansas, one of which is the Arkansas Virtual Academy that serves students online all across the state.
The new law requires that a traditional school district seeking a waiver list on its waiver application the name or names of charter schools that are drawing away students. The district must also list the waivers granted to the charter school, as well as the waivers the traditional district would like to get.
Moss, the Harrison superintendent, said Friday that her district is exploring the waiver option and is very happy to have the opportunity to seek one.
"There are so many opportunities right now for public schools, particularly public high schools, to start looking at how to meet the needs of today's scholars," she said.
Her district is working with Harrison city leaders, North Arkansas College representatives, and area businesses and industries to find grants and other ways to create job-site internships for students, expand concurrent college and high school credit opportunities, and offer more online courses. One of the results will be 12th-graders simultaneously graduating from high school and earning associate degrees or skills certification.
The Harrison district is applying for waivers on school-day hours and how instructional time is defined. The district is also asking for a waiver on grading scales.
"With the demonstration of competency-based learning, students ... will gain the flexibility in their school day to pursue these opportunities within a reasonable time frame," the Harrison application says. "Our students need a vision of future possibilities to persist to graduation. These waivers will allow us to give them that vision while increasing their college and career-ready skills."
Moss said waiting until after high school graduation to familiarize youths with the workforce and postsecondary training is too late.
"If we wait until they graduate, we've already lost a segment of our scholars who may have dropped out," Moss said.
"We need to catch them sooner. That is what is behind our motivation in asking for these waivers. Now actually having a blueprint in place and knowing exactly how we would implement that, we need some more professional development on that."
To that end, Harrison district leaders have trips scheduled to the Siloam Springs and Springdale school districts to learn how business partnerships and competency-based learning are being done there, she said.
In the Osceola School District, where some students are enrolled in KIPP Delta Public Schools charter system at Blytheville, district leaders are seeking waivers from state laws that require duty-free lunch periods and daily planning periods for staff members, as well as from rules and laws that set teacher-pupil ratios, parameters for gifted education programs and standards for library/media specialists.
The district, headed by Superintendent Mike Cox, is also asking that the terms of the Teacher Fair Dismissal Act and the Public School Employee Fair Hearing Act to be relaxed.
The laws, in general, provide staff members with due process rights, including a right to have a hearing before a school board in the event of recommendations for their firing or nonrenewal of their contracts.
"Osceola School District requests exemption from this portion of the education code to allow ... district teachers to resign at will with limited notice to employer, and Osceola School District will have the authority to dismiss employees at will without notice or cause," the district's application stated.
"The district will be free to hire teachers based on skills, but reserves the right to dismiss those teachers if it becomes apparent they are not performing to the high standards required for student success," the application also said.
The Rogers School District, headed by Superintendent Janie Darr, has applied for a waiver of a state rule that defines a unit of high school credit as one given for a course that meets for 120 clock hours. A minimum average six-hour day or minimum 30-hour week is required.
"Seat time can be a barrier for certain students," the Rogers application stated. "This waiver would simultaneously allow students to graduate on time and seek more opportunities to pursue alternate course work during their high school years as they acquire post-secondary credits and/or industry certifications."
Some of the waivers sought by the Armorel School District, headed by Superintendent Sally Bennett, center on the state's requirements for alternative learning environments for struggling students.
"We have not placed any students in ALE for the past four years," the district's waiver application stated. "We are a small, rural school with a K-12 population of 428 students. We are able to intervene early when issues begin to arise. A waiver would lessen the district's paperwork burden, and it would not have a negative impact on student learning."
SundayMonday on 07/19/2015