The Little Rock School District is reopening its request for proposals for the re-purposing of the soon-to-be-vacant Franklin Elementary and Woodruff Early Childhood Education Center in the district.
The district announced late Tuesday that it will accept proposals through 2 p.m. June 16 for the use of the campuses that are being closed for student use beginning with the coming 2017-18 school year.
Proposals submitted earlier this year for the buildings also will continue to be considered, according to a news release.
The earlier proposals -- which included retaining the buildings as district schools and converting the schools into apartments, a community health center, a charter school and a new home to the Watershed Human Development Center -- were presented at public meetings earlier this month and then were subject to review by neighborhood association leaders, among others.
The single largest offer of payment for either of the properties was $700,000 for Woodruff. Another was for $200,000 and another for $25,000. Another group proposed investing a percentage of its revenue into the building for a set number of years.
"The decision to extend the opportunity for offers is a result of conversations between community members and [the school district], as well as the administration's knowledge of timelines that allow the district greater flexibility in re-purposing the sites," a district representative said.
The reference to timelines is in regard to Act 542 of this year that gives independently operated, public charter schools stronger rights-of-first-access to vacant or underused school buildings in traditional school districts.
Open-enrollment charter schools and traditional public schools typically compete for students and state aid in a community.
Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore has said the new state law -- which includes a process and timelines for identifying school buildings as unused or underused -- will not affect the Little Rock district until early 2018, giving the district more time to find uses for the buildings that won't compete for students and will be a benefit to the neighborhoods.
The Little Rock district is closing three schools and re-purposing a fourth to save $3.5 million, part of $11 million in budget cuts sought for the 2017-18 school year.
In addition to closing Woodruff, 3010 W. Seventh St., and Franklin, 1701 S. Harrison, the district is closing Hamilton Learning Academy, 3301 S. Bryant St., and moving the alternative learning program for secondary school students now at Hamilton to Wilson Elementary School, 4015 Stannus Road. Wilson will no longer serve elementary pupils.
While Hamilton will be vacated, district leaders have not advertised that school as one for redevelopment by outside entities. Poore has suggested that Hamilton -- which is a former middle school and adjacent to Bale Elementary -- could become part of a new kindergarten-through-eighth-grade complex in a year or two.
Poore has said the schools to be closed or re-purposed -- all of which serve high percentages of black students in areas that are south of Interstate 630 -- come in a district that has in excess of 2,300 vacant elementary school seats. That number swells to more than 4,000 vacant seats if those in portable classroom buildings are also counted, Poore has said.
While reopening its request for proposals for Woodruff and Franklin, the district will not consider any current or future recommendations to continue to operate the buildings as public schools. Opponents of the district's plans to close the schools had submitted proposals that the district continue to operate the schools as they are.
Proposal requirements for any new offers are available from Darral Paradis, the district's director of procurement, who can be reached by email: Darral.Paradis@lrsd.org.
Metro on 04/26/2017