Education notebook

Computer-courses standards get OK

The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday approved standards for computer-science education and new high school courses based on those standards for implementation in schools no later than 2017-18.

The standards are intended to ensure that students have foundations in computer science that will allow them to "function in an ever-changing technological world." The standards cover computational thinking and problem solving; data and information; algorithms and programs; computers and communications; and community, global and ethical impacts.

The Education Board's approved courses for 2017-18 are computer science with programming/coding emphasis; mobile application development; computer science with networking/hardware emphasis; robotics; computer science with information security emphasis; and college board advanced placement computer science principles. Also approved are opportunities for independent study and internships in the computer science fields.

The Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas Department of Career Education worked in collaboration on the standards and the courses. The new courses will replace all existing computer science courses in the 2017-18 school year.

The Education Department and the governor's office this week announced a statewide contest to honor schools for their efforts to promote computer science by giving awards for student enrollment in the courses.

2 districts granted state rules waivers

The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday approved additional waivers to state laws and rules for operating a school district for the Greenbrier and Hamburg school districts.

Both districts were approved earlier for waivers but sought new ones.

Act 1420 of 2015 allows a school district to petition the Education Board for waivers of any state rules and laws that were previously awarded to an open-enrollment charter school that enrolls at least one student who lives in the district that's applying for waivers.

To date, 51 of the state's 235 school districts have received approval of waivers. Several of those districts -- including Hamburg and Greenbrier -- have claimed some of the waivers awarded earlier to the Arkansas Virtual Academy, which is an online charter school able to serve students statewide.

The Greenbrier waivers will allow teachers licensed to teach kindergarten-through-fourth grades to teach fifth grade, and give the district some flexibility in hiring a ninth-grade science teacher, and a secondary health and wellness teacher. High school students will be able to enroll in concurrent college credit courses, take internships, be employed or do community projects as the result of a waiver of minimum clock hours required for high school courses.

The Education Board voted against granting the Greenbrier district a waiver of the required two hours per day allotted to library-media specialists for their administrative tasks. Superintendent Scott Spainhour and Deputy Superintendent Lisa Todd had proposed that the media specialists -- some of the best-trained educators in the district -- use the time to work with individual or small groups of low-achieving students in kindergarten-through-12th grades.

Tracey-Ann Nelson, executive director of the Arkansas Education Association teachers union, objected to the proposed waiver of the library-media specialists' administrative time, voicing complaints from Greenbrier employees about the failure of district leaders to consult with them about the plan before submitting it to the state.

Nelson also said librarians are not trained academic interventionists, and she warned that the librarians still will have to do the tasks they do during the administrative period but would likely end up doing it at a time for which they would not be paid.

The Hamburg School District received approval to expand its kindergarten class size up to 25 pupils at Portland Elementary. Superintendent Max Dyson said the school, that has only one kindergarten classroom, has an experienced teacher and a full-time aide who are willing and able to manage a class that exceeds the state maximum of 22 students. The district's other elementary school is in 25 miles away in Hamburg.

PB district's report to state moved up

The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday accelerated the date for the Pine Bluff School District to report to the board's academic distress committee after Pine Bluff High School Principal Michael Nellums complained that he was thwarted in efforts to fully staff his school.

The committee will hear a presentation from the Pine Bluff district leaders, including the superintendent, principals and School Board members, in October, rather than in December as initially planned.

Pine Bluff High is one of the campuses in Pine Bluff that is labeled as academically distressed because of low test scores over a three-year period. Nellums said his school has nine teacher vacancies just days before school starts Monday. He complained that he sought a state waiver on teacher licensure but that district leaders declined to allow the waiver request to go to the state Education Board.

Metro on 08/12/2016