The Little Rock School District's Community Advisory Board voted 5-1 late Thursday in support of a high school attendance zone plan that will make Hall High School a special program magnet school without an attendance zone, enabling it to draw students from across the district.
The recommended plan, known as Option 2 to go into effect in the coming 2020-21 school year, also would give west Little Rock students the option of attending a high school program at Pinnacle View Middle School rather than Central High, which would be their attendance zone school. That Pinnacle View School of Innovation program currently offers a ninth grade, which will expand in the coming year to include a 10th grade. The school does not offer traditional extracurricular activities.
In a meeting in which several advisory board motions either died for a lack of a second or because of 3-3 tie votes, the advisory board also:
• Voted 5-1 to oppose the Option 3 plan in which Hall would be a magnet school with an attendance zone that would expand into the Central High attendance zone, including a portion of the Hillcrest neighborhood.
[MAPS: See proposed attendance zones » arkansasonline.com/hsattendancezones/]
• Voted 5-1 to recommend that current high school students be permitted to complete their high school careers at their current schools if they choose and if their high schools remain open. McClellan and J.A. Fair high schools are to close at the completion of this school year. The Fair and McClellan attendance zones will be combined to create the attendance zone for the new Southwest High School that will open in August.
• Defeated with a 3-3 vote a recommendation to delay a plan for converting J.A. Fair into a kindergarten-through- eighth-grade campus that would serve students now assigned to Henderson Middle, Romine and David O. Dodd elementary schools -- all of which would be closed and/or repurposed.
The tie vote means there is no recommendation from the advisory board on the use of J.A. Fair.
The advisory board recommendations now go to Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key for final action. Key acts in place of a school board in the state-controlled school district and has the authority to accept, reject or alter recommendations from the advisory board.
The advisory board members took the actions they did near the end of a 4½-hour meeting during which some 20 parents, community activists, teachers and lawmakers spoke to the board about different aspects of the attendance zone proposals. Several urged the advisory board to slow down the process.
"This is happening too fast," state Rep. Tippi McCullough, D-Little Rock, a former Central High teacher, told the advisory board, adding that having two public forums and a decision-making meeting on the topic in a week's time was not sufficient.
"My concern is with the process," she said. "People need time to process. I know I do."
"Now is the time to do nothing," Little Rock resident Ben Pope said, calling for a delay until the state releases the district to a locally elected board. That election of a nine-member Little Rock School Board is set for next November.
Advisory board member Anthony Hampton later made a motion to "pause on all of this" so as to give it more consideration with involvement from the community. That motion did not get a second from another board member, meaning it could not go forward with a full vote.
Hampton was the sole "no" vote on the motions that did pass in support of Option 2, against Option 3 and the grandfather clause that would allow students to remain at their high schools until graduation.
Advisory board member Michael Mason made the successful motion to adopt the Option 2 attendance zone plan after advisory board member Melanie Fox had attempted different times to make a similar motion but with attached requirements to it.
One of those requirements, Fox proposed, called for a magnet program to be added to Southwest High School -- a program within the school that would be similar to magnet programs within Central High. Such a magnet program at Southwest would enable students from across the city to apply to attend the school.
Fox also called for the development of a science, technology, engineering, arts and math magnet program at Hall that would be developed with community involvement using the same process used to develop Forest Heights STEM Academy a few years ago. That drew objections from Superintendent Mike Poore and members of his staff who said the Forest Heights program displaced all teachers and opened positions to interested candidates. Poore said that would be impossible at a time when the district is also staffing Southwest and adding staff at the Pinnacle View high school.
Fox also called for a ninth-through-12th-grade school option in west Little Rock.
Jeff Wood, chairman of the advisory board and representative of the district's Zone 4 that encompasses the Pinnacle View area, led a lengthy advisory board discussion on opening a ninth-through-12th-grade school with traditional extracurricular activities such as athletics, spirit groups and band at Pinnacle View.
Wood said the district is losing high school students and the state money that would be generated for those students to competing public and private high schools.
"Invest in the west," he urged.
But Poore and Pinnacle View Principal Jay Pickering said an immediate ninth-through-12th-grade program would be cost prohibitive and counter to the school of innovation program being built with input from the current ninth graders and their families.
Wood's motion for the Pinnacle View traditional high school campus died with a 3-3 vote with Wood, Fox and Lupita Chavarria voting for it and LaShannon Spencer, Anthony Hampton and Mason voting against it.
The state-appointed advisory board has seven members, but there is one vacancy after the resignation of Jocelyn Craig. The attendance zone proposals come just as district parents are to make school selections for their children for the 2020-21 school year.
The open-enrollment registration period began this week and has been extended into January.
Poore and his staff had proposed three high school options. In all three options, the existing McClellan and J.A. Fair attendance zones would be assigned to the new Southwest High that is to open in August; Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High will remain a magnet school with no attendance zone; and Hall High would be a magnet school -- possibly featuring the STEAM subjects of science, technology, engineering, art and math.
Options 1 and 2 were identical except in Option 1, the high school attached to Pinnacle View Middle School would have a small attendance zone in the northwest part of the city. In Option 2, the Pinnacle View High School zone would encompass the same area as the Pinnacle View Middle School zone but families would have the option to attend the Pinnacle View High School or Central High.
The attendance zone changes were prompted in part by the opening of the new Southwest school and closing of Fair and McClellan.
Additionally, earlier this year, Key had approved a Community Blueprint Facilities plan that calls for closing and/or consolidating schools to tailor the size of the school district to the declining student enrollment in the system.
Metro on 12/06/2019