Little Rock School District superintendent releases recommendations for schools to be repurposed, closed

Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore released recommendations on which schools to close, consolidate or repurpose in anticipation of the 2020 opening of the city's new Southwest High School and in response to the district's loss of hundreds of students.

McClellan High and J.A. Fair High in southwest Little Rock would each be repurposed as kindergarten-through-eighth grade schools. Bale Elementary and the adjoining, now vacant Hamilton/Southwest Middle School would become an infant-through-eighth grade complex.

Cloverdale Middle School in southwest Little Rock and Henderson Middle School in west Little Rock would close.

Five elementary schools — Baseline, David O. Dodd, Meadowcliff, Romine and Rockefeller would close or be repurposed. Rockefeller in east Little Rock, for example, is slated in the proposal to be a center for infants through pre-kindergarten children.

The recommendations will be presented to the district's Community Advisory Board at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Metropolitan Career-Technical Center, 7701 Scott Hamilton Dr. The final decision rests with state Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who serves as the school board for the state-run school district.

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