Charter system's renewal advised

Panel: Schools in Jacksonville OK

Lenisha Broadway, regional vice president for the national Lighthouse Academies Inc. in Arkansas, addresses the state Charter Authorizing Board on Wednesday in Little Rock. Broadway spoke in favor of a five-year renewal for Jacksonville Lighthouse Academy, a charter school that operates three campuses for nearly 1,000 students.
Lenisha Broadway, regional vice president for the national Lighthouse Academies Inc. in Arkansas, addresses the state Charter Authorizing Board on Wednesday in Little Rock. Broadway spoke in favor of a five-year renewal for Jacksonville Lighthouse Academy, a charter school that operates three campuses for nearly 1,000 students.

The state's Charter Authorizing Panel on Wednesday voted unanimously to support a five-year charter renewal for the Jacksonville Lighthouse Academy, which operates three campuses for almost 1,000 students.

The recommendation of the panel -- made up of the state Department of Education's top level administrators -- is subject to review and a final decision by the Arkansas Board of Education early next year.

The renewal of the charter comes at a time when the surrounding Jacksonville/North Pulaski School District is the midst of its first year of operation and is in the early stages of constructing an elementary school and a high school, with plans to build three new elementaries over the next 20 years. Representatives of the Jacksonville district did not attend the panel meeting Wednesday to take a position on the charter renewal.

"Jacksonville Lighthouse Charter School opened in 2009 to 344 kindergarten-through-sixth-grade students that came from several different schools and home schools and is one of the most diverse charter schools in Arkansas," Lenisha Broadway, regional vice president for the national Lighthouse Academies Inc., in Arkansas, told the panel.

The open-enrollment charter-school system has since expanded to kindergarten through 12th grades. The Lower Academy serves 382 in kindergarten through sixth grade, and Lighthouse College Preparatory Academy, for grades seven through 12 in Jacksonville, serves 417. Flightline Upper Academy for fifth through eighth grades has 175 students and is on Little Rock Air Force Base. The two Jacksonville campuses have an enrollment that is 58 percent to 60 percent black, 26 percent to 28 percent white and about 10 percent Hispanic. The school on the military base has an enrollment that is about 38 percent black, 46 percent white and 10 percent Hispanic.

The schools feature an arts-infused, college-preparatory curriculum, Broadway said. Spanish and Chinese language instruction, hands-on science and technology projects, character education and a restorative-practices discipline management program are also components of the system that graduated its first class of seniors this past spring. One hundred percent of the graduates were accepted to four-year colleges, Broadway said, although some later opted for the military and other options.

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All high school students took the rigorous Advanced Placement courses or pre-Advanced Placement courses this past year although Broadway and other school officials acknowledged that many of the students scored the lowest score of 1 on a 1 to 5 scale on the Advanced Placement tests.

Eric Saunders, the Education Department's assistant commissioner for research and technology and a Charter Authorizing Panel member, noted that while the charter system generally outperformed nearby traditional public schools on state-required exams, the elementary charter school did not compare as well against the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special district and statewide test results.

"To me there was a great concern in grades three through six , you were almost at the lowest ... of all those grades," he told Broadway and her staff. "Now from the seventh grade on, that was not the trend," Saunders added.

Broadway said supports were added and leadership shifts were made this past August to address the student achievement levels. That included the adding of a principal at the elementary school so that there is one principal to oversee kindergarten through second grades and another to supervise third through sixth grades.

Earlier, Broadway said academic achievement over time hasn't shown consistent growth, in part because of a change to what turned out to be a less-than-rigorous curriculum in the elementary grades, prompting another change for the 2015-16 year. The system now uses the educational products Eureka Math, Expeditionary Learning and Core Knowledge curricula as the basis for instruction.

Former Sen. Mike Wilson of Jacksonville said a good part of the community "strongly supports Lighthouse, has from the conception and does still now. We urge you to extend their charter as far as you can do it."

In voting for the renewal of the charter, Stacy Smith, assistant commissioner for learning services, said the charter school seems to be attuned to areas of concern and has taken steps to address the areas.

Saunders also voted for the renewal but said he is looking forward to the school system improving achievement in the elementary grades.

Metro on 12/15/2016

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