An Arkansas Department of Education panel on Wednesday unanimously approved a 200-student increase to the 650-student cap at Academics Plus Charter School in Maumelle, despite opposition from the Pulaski County Special School District.
The decision on the enrollment expansion is not final. It is subject to review by the Arkansas Board of Education at a March 20-21 meeting. That board can accept the Charter Authorizing Panel’s decision or conduct a hearing on the matter on the board’s own initiative or at the request of the affected Pulaski County Special district.
Also on Wednesday, the authorizing panel, which is made up of state Education Department top-level staff members, gave preliminary approval to the three-year renewal of the charter for the Jacksonville Lighthouse Academy and to the three year renewal of the charter for the Little Rock Preparatory Academy. Those decisions are also subject to final decisions by the state Education Board.
Charters can be renewed for as many as 20 years by state law, but the longest renewal period ever granted has been 10 years.
Rob McGill, executive director of the kindergarten-through-12th-grade Academics Plus school, said the addition of 200 students - 100 each year for the next two years - would accommodate students on the school’s waiting list and in its applicant pool for next year.
“The fact remains that even though Pulaski County Special is doing great things, we still have about 1,000 students who want to come to our school - 650 currently enrolled and 332 who want to come to our school,” McGill said in response to the district’s opposition.
“Even though they are doing great things, we are, too,” he said.
McGill told the panel that if allowed to increase the enrollment cap the school will provide bus service for the first time in its 13-year history as a way to increase the racial and economic diversity of the student body.
School leaders plan to transport students living in the Oak Grove, Marche and Palarm communities in northwest Pulaski County. Those areas are more rural and less affluent than much of Maumelle.
The school will purchase at least one bus - maybe two - for the area using money from the state’s general improvement fund, Mc-Gill said. Academics Plus is getting help with that money from Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, and Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, both of whom encouraged the panel Wednesday to support the enrollment increase.
Ever since the establishment of Academics Plus in 2001, the racial makeup of the student body has been a challenge for the school.
In September, the school’s enrollment was reported as 77 percent white, 15 percent black, 5 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Asian-American. The same report showed that 28 percent of students were eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, which is an indication of low family income.
In the school’s early years, school leaders sought a student ratio that mirrored the 20 percent to 40 percent black guideline set for schools in the surrounding Pulaski County Special School District. That goal was ultimately removed from the charter, but the state Education Board and others continued to push for greater diversity at the school, which has no set attendance zone and is open to students throughout central Arkansas. The only transportation service the school has offered to date are tokens to students to ride Central Arkansas Transit Authority buses to and from the campus.
Sam Jones, an attorney for the Pulaski County Special district, told the Charter Authorizing Panel that the district’s leaders are distressed that Academics Plus “has never met most of the goals they promised the state board a decade ago.” In terms of minority-group enrollment, “they’ve gone backwards.”
He noted that the state Education Board denied the school’s last request for an enrollment increase and limited the charter’s renewal to just three years because of its concerns at that time about diversity and academic achievement.
Jones said the school’s effort to diversify enrollment was unusual.
“It’s kind of like the tail wagging the dog,” he said about seeking the increase as a way to carry out the promises. “You are supposed to show compliance with your promises first.”
Jones also pointed to declines between 2012 and 2013 in math and literacy test results in several of the school’s grades, and to average ACT college entrance exam results that are below the state averages.
Jerry Guess, superintendent of the Pulaski County Special district, also argued that the school has failed to meet all of its commitments in its charter.
Guess touted the the district’s high-quality programs and facilities in the Maumelle area but said that the district is facing the loss of millions of dollars in state desegregation aid and the potential formation of a separate Jacksonville School District. An enrollment increase at Academics Plus would be an additional stress to the school district, he said.
Charter Authorizing Panel members delved into the achievement issues at the school, quizzing McGill about efforts to raise math achievement.
John Hoy, the Education Department’s assistant commissioner for accountability, questioned whether the school had “over promised to parents” when it stated that 70 percent of students would meet their growth targets on Northwest Education Association exams.
McGill said the 70 percent goal was probably too ambitious in light of the fact that the 50 percentile is the national average. He also said that this year, 61 percent of students are on track to meet the reading goals and 57 percent the math goals.
Hoy asked Kendra Clay, an Education Department attorney, whether the panel was obligated to act against a charter school request if the school failed to meet any one of six purposes of charter schools as listed in Arkansas Code Annotated 6-23-102, including holding the schools accountable for meeting measurable student achievement goals.
Clay said the panel has discretion in evaluating a charter school.
She said the law lists four reasons for modification or revocation of a charter or denial of renewal of the charter. Those broad reasons include material violation of the charter document, failure to meet accounting standards and fiscal mismanagement, failure to meet state education laws, and failure to meet academic or fiscal performance criteria deemed appropriate and relevant by the charter authorizer.
“I don’t think it’s a strict compliance,” Clay said, adding that, in general, failure to meet one particular aspect of a charter is not necessarily the basis for a revocation or modification.
“It would need to be a material violation,” she said.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/20/2014