LITTLE ROCK — A total of 814 students - more than half of whom are now enrolled in the Little Rock School District - have been accepted to attend one of the three eStem Public Charter Schools scheduled to open in downtown Little Rock this summer.
If the charter school enrollment numbers remain firm, the Little Rock School District stands to lose as much as $2.5 million in state funding. The district receives state aid on a per student basis - $5,770 per student this year. The district loses that aid for each student who leaves the district and is not replaced by an incoming student.
The eStem Public Charter Schools - an elementary, middle and high school - are set to open July 21 in the former Arkansas Gazette building at Third and Louisiana streets.
Roy Brooks, who was oust-ed last year from his job as Little Rock School District superintendent, is the chief executive officer of the nonprofit organization that is operating the three taxpayer-funded charter schools.
Joe Mittiga, the chief operations officer for the schools, said Thursday that school officials are gratified by the public's response to the new schools, which will not only feature a longer school year and school day but an instructional program that emphasizes mathematics, science, technology and foreign languages.
"It's been a very diverse group of parents who feel they want to exercise their option for choice," Mittiga said. "It's tremendously exciting. It's a big challenge. It's also incredibly gratifying."
Linda Watson, superintendent of the Little Rock School District, acknowledged that the charter schools have the potential to pull Little Rock students away from the district and reduce revenue.However, she said she won't be able to confirm the number of students leaving for the charter schools until requests are made by the new school for student records.
"We have been planning for some of that," she said about potential revenue shortfalls due to student losses. "We know that with any new school that opens we could possibly lose students. We are looking at tweaking the budget in our planning sessions."
But Watson also noted that the district's 26,600-student enrollment this year reflected an increase over last year despite the opening last August of the Dreamland Academy charter school in southwest Little Rock.
"We'll have to wait and see," she said.
It could be that 400 or more Little Rock students enroll in the charter schools but enrollment growth in the district from other sources could offset the loss, she said.
"Naturally we would love for the students [signing up for the charter schools] to be in the Little Rock School District. But this is a chance for them to look at the charter school and see if it is what they really want. It's about choice. What we have found with some of the other [charter schools] is that some students will go for awhile and then they return to the district."
The new charter schools have a definite Little Rock School District flavor.
Besides Brooks and Mittiga, who is the former governmental affairs liaison in the Little Rock district, other eStem executives include Mark Milhollen, who retired earlier this year from his position as the district's financial officer, and former Hall High Principal John Bacon, who is now the executive secondary school director.
More recent eStem hires include Katrina Jones, a former assistant principal at Hall High who will be the principal at theeStem Middle School, and Cindy Barton, the assistant principal at Watson Intermediate Elementary School, who will start work this month as principal of the eStem Elementary School.
A total of 1,177 students applied for the three charter schools as of March 25, Mittiga said Thursday. From that pool, 814 students were selected by lottery for enrollment. School planners asked the parents of those selected students to send in their commitments to the school by March 31. In cases where parents of some students decline to commit, new students will be selected from the waiting list and/or new applications, Mittiga said.
Applications continue to be accepted for all three schools, Mittiga said. There are about 25 vacancies for the high school, which this year will only consist of a 100-member ninth-grade class. There are about 17 vacancies in grades seven and eight. Applicants for the elementary school will be placed on the waiting list.
Of the 814 students accepted, 53.56 percent came from the Little Rock district, 15.97 percent from Pulaski County Special School District, 6.39 percent from North Little Rock, 13.88 percent from private schools, Mittiga said.
Another 2 percent identified themselves as home school students, 4.3 percent were from other charter schools, 1.6 percent from public schools outside Pulaski County, and 2.2 percent from "other" schools including schools overseas.
Mittiga also provided a racial breakdown of the students accepted to date: A total of 55.77 percent are black, 35.26 percent are white, 2.95 percent are of Asian ancestry and 1.97 percent are of Hispanic ancestry. About4 percent are American Indian or are listed as "other."
The name of the new charter schools is an acronym for the "economics of science, technology, engineering and mathematics."
The eStem charter schools are not the only new charter schools in the city of Little Rock.
Covenant Keepers College Preparatory Charter School is planned for grades six through eight on Geyer Springs Road.
Valerie Tatum, the director of the school, said Thursday that the new middle school has a tentative enrollment of more than 100 students.
Arkansas, Pages 11, 17 on 04/04/2008