Education notebook

School for pupils in distress OK'd

The Arkansas Board of Education last week gave final approval to the Hope Academy of Northwest Arkansas, an open enrollment charter school to serve students who have experienced abuse and trauma.

The school, the first of its kind in Arkansas, will be housed on the campus of the Northwest Arkansas Children's Shelter in Bentonville.

It will focus on students who have experienced abuse, neglect and other adverse childhood experiences, including the death of a parent or caregiver, exposure to substance abuse in the home, homelessness and living in a chronically chaotic environment.

Small classroom settings and specially trained teachers to provide personalized, trauma-informed instruction will be offered to these students.

The school will open with kindergarten through third grades in the 2020-21 school year.

The goal of the charter is to add grades each year until it is a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade school with a capacity of 70 students by the 2023-24 school year.

Enrollment applications will be available in January with an application deadline of the end of February. An admissions lottery will be conducted if the number of applications exceeds the number of available slots in each classroom.

Dropout-recovery school's mat out

Graduate Arkansas, a dropout-recovery charter high school for students ages 15-21, will reintroduce itself to central Arkansas with an open house from 10 a.m. to noon on Oct. 29 at the campus at 6724 Interstate 30.

The school was formerly known as the School for Integrated Academics and Technologies, or SIATech, and was part of a national network of charter schools.

The Little Rock school cut its ties with the national organization earlier this year.

New and prospective students, along with their families and community leaders, are invited to the Graduate Arkansas event, Superintendent Katie Hatley said.

The mission of Graduate Arkansas is to reconnect disconnected students to top-tier learning opportunities in a setting designed to meet the unique needs of students whose learning styles differ from their peers, Hatley said.

The school offers a small setting with highly qualified staffing in every position.

More information is available by calling (501) 500-9270 or by emailing to Ashley.lee@graduatearkansas.org.

Unit: Part of grant to combat bullying

The U.S. Department of Justice has notified the Arkansas Department of Education's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education that it has been selected for the award of a $500,000 grant to be used for anti-violence initiatives.

Doug Bradberry, the agency's school safety coordinator, said last week that a portion of the funding will be used for an anti-bullying campaign that will target state students in the middle school grades of five through nine.

The three-year campaign is expected to involve school counselors and public service announcements.

Other plans for the money include the forming of 15 school crisis response teams across the state, Bradberry said.

Metro on 10/14/2019

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