LR school district topic of meeting
The present and future state of the Little Rock School District will be the topic of discussion at a meeting Thursday in the Old Supreme Court Chamber of the state Capitol.
The meeting is set for 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
State Sens. Joyce Elliott, Linda Chesterfield and Will Bond, along with state Reps. Fredrick Love, Warwick Sabin, Charles Blake, Clarke Tucker and Fred Allen are hosting the event.
The meeting will feature opening remarks from members of the state Board of Education. Board members Jay Barth, Charisse Dean and Fitz Hill, all of Little Rock, have confirmed their plans to attend, Elliott said Friday.
The remarks by the state board members will be followed by a period in which members of the audience can ask questions and make comments, Elliott said. Legislators will be invited to make remarks at the conclusion of the session.
Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore and Arkansas Education Commissioner Johnny Key are among the invited guests for the session, Elliott said. However, Elliott said the meeting is being held at the same time as the Little Rock School District's monthly Community Advisory Board meeting, which is likely to keep Poore from attending.
The state Board of Education took control of the Little Rock School District in January 2015 because six of its 48 schools were state-labeled as academically distressed. The superintendent was put under the direction of the education commissioner and the locally elected school board was disbanded. Since then, three of the six academically distressed schools have been cleared of the label.
Entry into the Capitol for the forum must be through the front, or east, entrance.
Hutchinson to tour state high schools
Gov. Asa Hutchinson will be spending time in state high schools this month as part of his ongoing campaign to encourage students to take computer science courses.
This is his fifth computer science tour since taking office in 2015.
This week's tour will include school stops at Harrison, Alpena, Green Forest, Beebe, Forrest City and Hot Springs.
"Arkansas is truly becoming a tech hub," Hutchinson said in a statement, "and I can't wait to hit the road and meet even more of our talented students to spread the word about coding and their future in Arkansas' economy."
Auditorium to get seating makeover
The auditorium in the Arch Ford Education Building on the grounds of the state Capitol will be getting a makeover.
Home to the monthly meetings of the state Board of Education, the auditorium will be reconfigured to put the seating for the board along the room's south wall and to expand the amount of audience seating to more than 100 seats.
Currently, the Education Board members are seated in an elevated alcove of sorts at the west end of the auditorium.
The work is scheduled to start in mid-September and will result in the Education Board holding a few of its meetings at a temporary location -- the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality building at 5301 Northshore Drive in North Little Rock.
Metro on 08/19/2017