The Arkansas Charter Authorizing Panel on Wednesday recommended renewing for five years the state- issued charters for four charter schools, including Arkansas Connections Academy, which is a statewide virtual school.
The panel also endorsed five-year charter renewals for:
Cross County: New Tech High School, which was established in 2011 for up to 500 students in seventh through 12th grades.
Don Tyson School of Innovation in Springdale, which was initially approved in 2015 and can serve up to 8,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Hot Springs World Class High School, which was first approved in 2015 for serving grades 10 through 12 with an enrollment cap of up to 1,200.
Arkansas Connections Academy also received preliminary approval from the state panel to raise its enrollment cap from the current 3,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade to a maximum of 7,000 students, to be phased in over five years.
The Charter Authorizing Panel decisions on the four schools — along with panel decisions made on four other charter renewals earlier this week — must be finalized by the Arkansas Board of Education. The existing charters are otherwise due to expire June 30. The state Education Board will take up the charter renewals early next year.
The state charters are necessary for the operation of the schools, which are somewhat experimental in efforts to raise student achievement and have waivers from some state laws and rules that apply to public schools.
The authorizing panel voted 4-0 in support of the charter renewal for the Hot Springs World Class High School — operated by the Hot Springs School District — despite the school receiving a “D” grade from the state in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The state A-to-F letter grades are based largely on results from the ACT Aspire tests given annually in grades three through 10 in the subjects of math, literacy and science. Some of the other factors in calculating the grades include student attendance and ACT college entrance exam scores. The Aspire tests were not given in the spring of 2020 because campuses were closed statewide in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The Hot Springs World Class High — the district’s only high school — features career academies in the areas of business and industrial technologies, education and health care, and liberal studies, which includes International Baccalaureate courses of study. Electives and required courses are tied to each career-related area. Courses are taught not only at the school but also at National Park College, industrial settings, medical institutions and other sites.
“There is academic work to be done,” panel member Naccaman Williams of Springdale said in supporting the school’s request for renewal. “The current leadership has a handle on what needs to be done and has developed a plan.”
“You have convinced us that you are on top of this and that you are going to fix it, and we believe that you will,” panel member Phil Baldwin of Batesville told Hot Springs Assistant Superintendent Taryn Echols and Hot Springs World Class High Principal Kiley Simms in voting for the renewal.
Discussion about the Hot Springs school prompted panel member Toyce Newton of Crossett to question whether the A-to-F letter grades accurately tell the story of a school to parents who have children at a campus.
Williams responded that the letter grades inspire a sense of urgency in schools to address student and faculty needs. Previously, there was “no stick” for school leaders to say “we have got to do better,” Williams said.
Deborah Coffman, assistant state commissioner for school accountability and chairman of the Charter Authorizing Panel, called the letter grades for schools “a conversation starter.”
No single metric can tell the whole story of a school, but it can start a conversation among those at a school about what the components used in calculating the letter grade, she said. Unpacking the elements of a school’s letter grade can lead to examining each school’s online report card, which contains information on topics such as teacher licensure and finances, Coffman said.
The increased enrollment cap tentatively approved for Arkansas Connections Academy gives the online charter school the potential to be one of the state’s largest open-enrollment charter school at 7,000 students. It would be second only to the Don Tyson School of Innovation, which is a district-operated, A-graded conversion charter school for as many as 8,000 students, some of whom learn on-campus and some of whom learn online.
The Connections Academy, which has a C grade from the state based largely on data from the 2018-19 school year, has an enrollment of 2,872 students this year and a staff of 115. That’s up from 1,630 students the previous year.
Darla Gardner, superintendent of the school, noted that the school has a 91% faculty retention rate, which won praise from the authorizing panel members.
Gardner told the panel the school has moved to a new interim testing program and hired an interventionist to help the school raise its letter grade once statewide Aspire testing is resumed next spring.
Dennis Beck, president of the board of directors for the Arkansas school, said in response to questions that the new enrollment cap, phased in over time, will give Connections Academy the flexibility to address the needs of parents “who are putting their trust in us.”
Also Wednesday, the Charter Authorizing Panel reviewed a list of charter schools that are not necessarily up for renewal but have two or more years of Ds and Fs from the state. The Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education had identified those schools and sent them questionnaires about the circumstances leading to the state grades and their plans for improvement.
Panel members declined to take further action on the schools. Baldwin said that asking the questions constituted action and that the responses from the school leaders were thorough.
“We’ve shown good oversight, ” he said.
Two of the schools on the list have given notice that they will surrender their state-issued charters. Those are the Blytheville High School — New Tech High School and the Harrisburg College and Career Preparatory School.
Others on the list are Scott Charter Elementary School in the Academics Plus system, Arkansas Virtual Academy Elementary School, Capital City Lighthouse Lower Academy, Exalt Academy of Southwest Little Rock, Future School of Fort Smith, Imboden Area Charter School, KIPP Delta campuses, and Pine Bluff Lighthouse Academy.
Also on the list of schools with two or more Ds or Fs are Academies of West Memphis, Hot Springs Junior Academy, Hot Springs World Class High School, Osceola STEM Academy and Warren Middle School.