An Arkansas Department of Education panel will decide this month whether to create 900 charter-school spots in downtown Rogers, as Haas Hall Academy hopes to open a school in the Lane Hotel, and the Arkansas Arts Academy has its eye on a multimillion-dollar expansion.
The Charter Authorizing Panel will consider the proposals when it meets Oct. 19-21, according to an agenda published Friday. If approved, the plans would go into effect in the fall of 2017, but it would take at least a few years to fill all the new spots, information submitted to the panel shows.
The panel's decisions are subject to review by the state Board of Education, which can reopen approved or denied requests on an individual basis.
Across the state, open-enrollment charter schools last year counted 12,406 students, or 2.6 percent, of the 476,000 students enrolled in the public school systems, according to a the latest Arkansas Department of Education data. An additional 11,463 students were enrolled in district-conversion charter schools.
Haas Hall Academy, which enrolled a combined 647 students at campuses in Fayetteville and Bentonville, would teach more than 350 students in Rogers beginning next school year, according to its proposal. The proposed enrollment cap is 500 students.
The Rogers campus would be the fourth for the academy, which emphasizes science, technology, engineering, arts and math for its seventh- through 12th-grade students. Haas Hall received state Board of Education approval this summer to open a Springdale campus after the Charter Authorizing Panel initially denied the request.
In its 2016-17 lottery to assign available spaces, 12 percent of student applicants gained admission to Haas Hall, indicating demand, Superintendent Martin Schoppmeyer said in a letter accompanying the request.
Arkansas Arts Academy, the only open-enrollment charter in the Northwest Arkansas city, is asking permission to increase its enrollment cap by 400 students to 1,225, a nearly 50 percent increase.
Higher enrollment is expected as part of -- and needed to support -- a multimillion-dollar plan to upgrade and expand its campus, said Mary Ley, the academy's chief executive.
About 15,100 students attended Rogers' public schools last year.
"Rogers Public Schools is an important part of the fabric that unites our community, and we hope that no child misses out on being part of that," district spokesman Ashley Kelley Siwiec said in an emailed statement. "We understand parents have great educational options in Northwest Arkansas, but for those that want a well-rounded education from nationally recognized exemplary schools, we think we're the best choice."
Charter schools do not adhere to district boundaries, so they may accept students from multiple districts.
Siwiec said she didn't have data on the number of children living in the Rogers district who attend charter schools. About half of Arkansas Arts Academy's students are from Rogers, Ley said.
Although the two charters are asking for a combined 900 new slots, those spaces won't be filled immediately.
Arkansas Arts Academy projects it will enroll 1,120 students by the 2021-22 school year, Ley said, a number that would still be shy of the requested cap. Haas Hall Academy's campuses in Fayetteville and Bentonville have caps of 500, but neither enrolled more than 352 students last year.
Arkansas Arts' expansion would put it at the "highest level" of public arts schools across the country, Ley said. The kindergarten-through-12 fine arts school, in the former home of Immanuel Baptist Church, would grow from 52,000 square feet to 79,000. Newly added recording studios, a theater and improved instructional space would flank the performance center.
"I just think our programming and our building is going to be so off the chain," Ley said.
The Charter Authorizing Panel also will hear a request from Goodwill Industries of Arkansas to open an adult-education charter school in Little Rock. The Excel Center is requesting a 125-student enrollment cap to educate people 19 or older who lack a high school diploma, according to its application.
KIPP Delta Public Schools is requesting to move its elementary school from Cherry Street in Helena-West Helena across town into a building the Helena-West Helena School District sold to KIPP Delta last year.
Cross County, a district conversion charter, seeks a waiver mandating computer business applications as a seventh-grade course.
The school said in information to the district that the waiver was previously in place but mistakenly left off its list of waivers when the charter sought renewal in February.
The panel also will hear applications for district conversion charter schools in six districts: Harrisburg, Harrison, Hot Springs, North Little Rock, Prairie Grove and Van Buren.
Metro on 10/08/2016