A divided Arkansas Charter Authorizing Panel voted Tuesday against renewing the state charter for the Pine Bluff Lighthouse Academy beyond this school year, citing low achievement and insignificant or erratic gains in the school's seven-year history.
The panel's 3-2 decision will now go the state Board of Education in January. The Education Board can either accept the panel's decision to close the school or conduct its own hearing -- either at its own initiative or the request of school operators -- before making a final decision on the fate of the 270-pupil kindergarten-through-eighth grade campus.
The vote occurred at a meeting in which the panel also:
• Tabled a decision on the renewal of the state charter for what is now Covenant Keepers Charter School in Little Rock and transfer that charter to a different nonprofit sponsor -- Friendship Education Foundation, which operates the Friendship Aspire Academy Schools elsewhere in the country as well as in Pine Bluff and will open a school in Little Rock in August.
• Approved a three-year charter renewal for the Exalt Academy of Southwest Little Rock.
• Approved a five-year renewal of the charter for the SIATech charter school, a second-chance high school in Little Rock.
• Approved an amendment to the charter for KIPP Delta Public Schools. The amendment permits closing the 97-pupil KIPP school in Forrest City in east Arkansas at the end of this school year and offering those students seats at KIPP campuses in Helena-West Helena.
Pine Bluff Lighthouse Academy's lower school for grades kindergarten through six received an F letter grade from the state for the 2017-18 school year, down from a D the previous year. The upper school for seventh- and eighth-graders received a D, down from a C the previous year.
Lenisha Broadway Roberts, director of the school, told the panel that the school was hit hard by the increase in the ACT Aspire's minimum passing score in the English/language arts test last spring. As a result of the higher passing or "ready" score, more than 30 students who would have met the desired achievement level had it not been changed fell below it, affecting the school's letter grades.
She also noted that of the 177 students who took the Aspire exam last spring, 75 were new that year to the school and that students are coming to the school at lower and lower achievement levels.
Roberts and her staff described steps underway to raise reading and math achievement, including more small group and differentiated instruction that hones in on the skills that individual students need but don't have.
Khori Whittaker, president and chief executive officer of the national Lighthouse Academies network of charter schools, offered the panel assurances that the strategies used in Lighthouse schools in Gary, Ind., and Indianapolis to raise achievement in three years would be applied in Pine Bluff.
"We are 100 percent committed to seeing that the school is an asset to the community," said Whittaker, who was accompanied by national staff leaders on academics and talent recruitment. "We can do it. We did it elsewhere."
But Naccaman Williams, a panel member and former state Board of Education member, said "there has been seven years of opportunity to get better" and "how long is long enough?"
Williams, a former math teacher, noted that overall 22 percent of Lighthouse students scored at "ready" levels on the 2018 Aspire math exams.
"That tells me that 78 percent of students did not reach it," Williams said. "I used to be a reading teacher, too, and I look at the reading scores. If we can't get math and we can't get reading right, we have a problem."
Mike Hernandez, the panel's acting chairman as well as the state superintendent for the office of coordinated support and service, said he had visited the school and saw positives but also questioned whether the school's staff had adequate experience to "move the needle" on student achievement.
"Borrowing from coaching, its not always about the X's and the O's but the Jimmys and the Joes," Hernandez said.
Mike Wilson, a panel member and former state legislator, made a motion to renew the charter for three years, but that was defeated. The panel also talked about putting the school on probation for a year.
Panel member Angela Kremers, deputy director for career and technical education at the Arkansas Department of Career Education, said probation would perpetuate the issues and that the panel would be back in a year making the same decision it could make Tuesday.
She made the motion to deny the renewal. Panel members Williams and Toyce Newtwon, a former state Education Board member, voted with Kremers for the motion. Wilson and Greg Rogers, assistant education commissioner for fiscal and administrative services, voted against the motion.
After the meeting Shatobeca Rhymes, a fifth-grade teacher and a parent of a Lighthouse student, said the small school and individual attention was positive for where her child's needs could be identified.
Rhymes noted that other schools in the Pine Bluff area are also struggling.
Both the Pine Bluff and Dollarway school districts in Jefferson County are under state control, in part because of low achievement. If the Pine Bluff Lighthouse Academy is ultimately closed, it would be the second charter school to close in Pine Bluff in as many years. Responsive Education Solutions voluntarily surrendered its charter and closed Quest Middle School in Pine Bluff at the end of the 2017-18 school year.
In regard to Covenant Keepers Charter School, which serves about 114 pupils in sixth through eighth grades, the panel agreed to a request from Valerie Tatum, the founder of the school, and Joe Harris, chief executive officer of the Friendship Education Association, for a one-month delay on deciding on renewing the charter and transferring it to the foundation.
Scott Smith, executive director of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center that is aiding Covenant Keepers in finding a sponsor and new management, said there is an unresolved issue between the entities regarding Covenant Keepers' debt and what part of that debt can by paid off with taxpayer funding and what is private debt incurred by the City of Fire nonprofit sponsoring organization.
The panel voted unanimously to approve both a three-year renewal of the Exalt Academy charter and a five-year renewal for SIATech, a dropout recovery school. Both are in southwest Little Rock. SIATech stands for School for Integrated Academics and Technologies.
Tina Long, Exalt superintendent, said she asked only for three years because of the 330-student school's D letter grade from the state. But she said she was confident that the rating will improve at the campus where a culture of good behavior has been achieved and the focus now is 100 percent on academics. That includes a longer school day and school year for students as well as two teachers per classroom.
Alexandra Boyd, previously the Education Department's coordinator of charter schools, told the panel that the letter grade is not reflective of the work at the school, which is seeing yearly enrollment growth and academic improvement, including improvement among students with disabilities -- a rarity in the state.
The board's vote also was unanimous in support of the KIPP Delta Public School's request to close its Forrest City school, which serves fifth-through-eighth-graders. The school is housed in leased church space and in modular buildings, which would eventually require a costly replacement, Chief Executive Director Scott Shirey said.
"We've seen some decline in performance," he said about the system's six schools -- five of which received D state letter grades. "We've stretched ourselves and our resources thin across three communities in the Delta. We want to get back to a place where we are running great schools and being incredibly focused."
He said the plan gives the 97 pupils at the Forrest City school the option to ride a bus to Helena-West Helena. Already, as many as 50 students from Forrest City ride a bus for about 50 miles to attend Helena-West Helena campuses.
A Section on 12/19/2018