The LISA Academy charter school system has temporarily withdrawn its application to open a new elementary school in west Little Rock and combine its two high schools into one Little Rock campus.
Atnan Ekin, superintendent of the LISA Academy, asked the state's Charter Authorizing Panel to remove the proposals from the agenda for today's panel meeting after learning that the cost of required street and traffic-control improvements to accommodate a new elementary school would cost about $300,000.
Ekin said that the dollar amount was one the charter system could not afford.
"The school decided to withdraw its application until we find a new, better location to expand," he said. "Still it is in our plan to grow. We'll continue to work on that."
The Charter Authorizing Panel is made up of top-level staff at the Arkansas Department of Education. The panel has the authority to act on applications for new charters and amendments to existing charters. However, the panel decisions are subject to the review and final vote by the Arkansas Board of Education, which can hold a hearing on a charter application.
The LISA Academy is the second charter system in recent days to pull down, at least temporarily, its application to the state panel to expand the number of its charter schools operated within the boundaries of the traditional Little Rock School District.
John Bacon, the chief executive officer of eSTEM Public Charter Schools Inc., on Friday announced that the eSTEM system was withdrawing its application for four new schools -- including two on the University of Arkansas at Little Rock campus -- so the application could be altered and resubmitted early next year to the panel, possibly in February.
Bacon said charter school leaders now intend to seek approval for a single high school building for either 11th- and 12th-graders or 10th- through 12th-graders on the UALR campus for 2017-18. The charter system would then seek to add a high school building at UALR and an elementary school and middle school in east Little Rock no earlier than the 2018-19 school year.
The LISA Academy planned to open a new kindergarten through sixth-grade elementary school in what is now the Nichols Furniture Store building on the corner of Shackleford Road and Shackleford Drive, just off West Markham Street.
Ekin said that the city would require the charter school to pay for a left turn lane, a traffic signal and the re-stripping of West Markham Street where it intersects with the short Shackleford Drive to accommodate traffic that would go to the new elementary school.
The other part of the LISA Academy plan -- which is also now delayed indefinitely -- called for combining the high school grades at the Lisa Academy-North campus on Landers Road in Sherwood with the Lisa Academy high school program at 23 Corporate Hill Drive, Little Rock.
The combined high school would be at the Corporate Hill location, which currently houses grades six through 12. The Lisa Academy-North campus would serve only kindergarten through eighth grades, according to the original plan.
Ekin said proposals for the two existing high schools may or may not be revised.
"Most probably everything will stay like it is for the upcoming 2016-17 school year," Ekin said about the current configurations of the Little Rock and Sherwood campuses.
This past summer, Baker Kurrus, the state-appointed superintendent of the state-controlled Little Rock School District, urged the Arkansas Board of Education to be mindful of the impact any decisions for expanding charter schools might have on the traditional public schools that he has been directed by the state to improve.
Kurrus pointed out that the proposed LISA Academy charter school would be less than a minute away from the district's Terry Elementary School, which has an A grade from the state for achievement despite a high enrollment of children from low-income and/or limited English speaking families.
On Monday, Ekin said last Friday's decision by the LISA Academy board of directors to pull the application for the elementary school was not tied to the proximity of the new school to Terry.
"We were ready to our explain our purpose and our intention," he said of the new school. "The main problem and the only problem is the traffic issue with the location."
Kurrus said Monday that he didn't have any comment on the plans of the charter school systems.
"I have my hands full trying to do all we can to make the experiences for our parents and our students the best they can be with the best results," he said.
The state Charter Authorizing Panel is meeting at 8:30 a.m. today, Wednesday and Thursday to consider applications for new charters and charter amendments for schools based in the Scott community of Pulaski County, Bentonville, Texarkana, Pine Bluff, Cave City, Fayetteville, Gentry, Hot Springs and Springdale.
Metro on 11/17/2015