State board approves new location for Little Rock charter middle school

The Arkansas Board of Education on Thursday approved a new location for the Little Rock Preparatory Academy’s charter middle school.

Jay Barth was the only board member to vote against the move.

The school proposed a change in its location from 4520 S. University Ave. to a more spacious 6711 W. Markham St. site beginning with the 2016-17 school year. The relocation would provide up to 180 fifth-through eighth-graders and their teachers with features not available at the current school, according to Tina Long, superintendent of the Little Rock Preparatory Academy.

The Charter Authorizing Panel, made up of top-level staff members at the Education Department, voted 5-2 May 18 in support of the academically struggling middle school’s northerly move in Little Rock.

Little Rock Preparatory generally serves academically struggling pupils from low-income families at two campuses: a kindergarten through fourth-grade school at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Spring Street and the South University Avenue campus. The system’s fifth grade would move from the downtown Spring Street campus to join grades sixth through eighth grades at the the new Markham Street site.

The school is one of the state’s 5 percent lowest-scoring “priority” schools. Schools with a “priority” designation means that the schools were among the lowest 5 percent of schools in the state in terms of achievement when results are combined over three academic years.

Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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