The Arkansas Department of Education is giving Haas Hall representatives another opportunity to present plans to open a charter school in Springdale.
The department voted unanimously Thursday to hear the Haas Hall presentation at its July 14 meeting. The department's Charter Authorizing Panel denied the request last month, citing concerns about student diversity, past lottery selection practices and a tight timeline for opening a school by August.
Mark Henry, an attorney for the school, said during the meeting Haas Hall leaders decided to push the requested start date for a Jones Center location in Springdale back a year. He said they hope to open in the fall of 2017 with 500 seventh- through 12th-graders.
Henry said the charter school planners received an agreement from the Jones Center to hold the space open for a new school in 2017 rather than this year. Henry asked the Education Board to reconsider the proposal in light of the change in the opening date.
He also asked the board consider the amended proposal rather than the authorizing panel, saying the panel's reasons for denying the plan "were not supported by law."
Haas Hall also will appeal the panel's denial to increase the enrollment cap from 400 to 500 at the Fayetteville campus. Jay Barth, Department of Education member, also requested a review of the approved proposal to give enrollment preference to siblings of Haas Hall students.
Jared Cleveland, Springdale School District's deputy superintendent, objected to the proposed Springdale location at the May Charter Authorizing Panel meeting. He said during last month's meeting the timing of the proposal and potential loss of as many as 500 students would be costly for the district over time because it has made legally required staffing decisions for next year.
He said on Thursday that Haas Hall's decision to push the proposed start date back a year showed the charter school's administrators listened to their concerns.
"We want to be good neighbors with Haas Hall," he said.
Martin Schoppmeyer, the founder and superintendent of Haas Hall, said it was a tight window to open a Springdale location for the 2016-17 school year and he wanted to be responsive to Springdale School District's concerns.
"I want to do it, but I want to do it right," he said after the meeting. "I'm excited about the partnership we are going to have with Springdale."
Schoppmeyer said he and Cleveland were already discussing ideas following Thursday's meeting.
The department also placed Ozark Montessori Academy, a public open-enrollment charter school in Springdale, on probation for violating state accreditation standards. It was the only school from Benton or Washington County among 11 schools across the state placed on probation. The 2015-16 school year was the first year for Ozark Montessori Academy, which had an enrollment of about 140 children in kindergarten through sixth grade.
The school violated state standards for class sizes in the first through third grades, according to information from the department. State standards require an average student-teacher ratio of 23 students per teacher and no more than 25 students in any one classroom.
The academy has classrooms of mixed ages and for 2015-16 had two classrooms of 27 students in first through third grade, said Christine Silano, principal of the academy. Silano staffed each of the classrooms with two adults, providing for a ratio of one teacher for every 14 students. Each grade level had 18 students.
With the ratio meeting the requirements, Silano thought her classrooms were in compliance, she said.
Silano could have requested a class-size waiver in her charter application but thought it wasn't necessary, she said. During the application process, she had input from the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, the education department's charter school division and the state Charter Authorizing Panel.
"Nobody picked this up," she said. "That was very frustrating."
Silano didn't have her enrollment projections ready until after the center staff finished discussing and preparing the waivers she needed to request in her application, said Tripp Walter, a staff attorney for the center. Having enrollment projections earlier in the process would have tipped off the resource center's staff of the need to include a waiver, Walter said.
Silano said she plans to reduce class sizes a little bit for the 2016-17 school year and to request in September the state Charter Authorizing Panel amend the school's charter with a class-size waiver.
The state Board of Education voted Thursday to hold hearings in July on plans by Little Rock Preparatory Academy to move its middle school to a new location.
Tina Long, superintendent of the Little Rock Preparatory Academy, said the board's 6-1 vote for a July hearing was disappointing but, if the plan is approved then, school planners can still accomplish the move in time for the start of the school year in August.
"We want the board to be fully comfortable with the decision they make," Long said.
Little Rock Preparatory Academy has focused on serving low-income, academically struggling students at two locations -- a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade school at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Spring Street and sixth- through eighth-graders at 4520 S. University Ave.
The board also approved charterlike waivers of some state laws and rules for three traditional school districts -- Clarendon, Malvern and Poyen.
Act 1420 of 2015 permits the Education Board to grant to a school district the same waivers from state laws and rules granted to open-enrollment charter schools drawing one or more students from a school district.
The 510-student Clarendon district requested and received waivers on teacher licensure, instructional time and student attendance. The waivers, in part, will support the district's plan to add four career-focus programs at the high school, bringing the total to seven.
The Malvern district received waivers of state-required instruction time for high school students. The waivers will enable the district to offer flexible scheduling for juniors and seniors who have at least a 2.5 grade point average and want to participate in post-secondary courses, job internships or employment in lieu of taking traditional elective courses.
The Poyen district received waivers regarding licensed teachers, student instructional time, student attendance requirements for high school students and counseling services.
All three districts are seeking waivers based on the fact one or more of their students is enrolled in the Arkansas Virtual Academy.
NW News on 06/10/2016