A draft plan for the exit of the Little Rock School District from the Level 5/intensive support category of the state's accountability system will get a first look by the district's Community Advisory Board at its 5:30 p.m. online meeting today.
The draft exit plan -- with its call for evidence of employee evaluations, the use of professional learning communities and adherence to the standards of a reading instruction program -- is being presented at the district level before it goes to the state Board of Education for review, Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore said Wednesday.
"I like the fact that they are trying to bring this to the public first and the state board second," Poore said about the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, which produced the draft. "I think that is kind of cool, and I think people are going to be very pleased when they get a chance to peruse the document."
"It's a much different criteria than what was there a year ago," he added.
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The exit criteria will be reviewed at a meeting in which Poore and his staff are expected to report on preliminary planning for the coming 2020-21 school year in light of the coronavirus pandemic that closed schools starting in March and the use of almost $6.6 million million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act money.
In planning for the new year -- in which the district intends to be prepared in case students must be taught in their homes -- the district is surveying employees and the parents of students about their experiences with at-home instruction these past few months.
The 23,000-student Little Rock district was placed under state direction in January 2015 with a state-appointed superintendent and a disbanded school board because six of its then 48 schools had chronically low student test scores on state literacy and math tests.
By law, the state can control a district for only five years before it must either return it to a locally elected school board, consolidate it with another school system or otherwise reconstitute it.
The state Education Board voted in late 2019 to reconstitute the Little Rock district by establishing a nine-member school board that would be restricted in its authority until the district emerges from the level 5/intensive support category of the school district accountability system.
"The draft exit plan outlined in this document reflects a shift from the previous school-level criteria based on [ federal school accountability] index scores to a set of district-level actions that will become criteria for exit from Level 5 support," the document to the Community Advisory Board states.
The document also assures the Little Rock advisory board -- created to make recommendations to Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key who acts in lieu of a school board in the state-controlled system -- that even when the district emerges from Level 5, the state agency "will continue to provide support to the district based on identified needs."
"The updated criteria will establish what the district must demonstrate to assure the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, the state Board and the community that LRSD is poised for the present and future academic success of its students," the draft document states.
Specifically, the goals of the proposed exit plan call for the district to use national school improvement programs for professional learning communities and high reliability schools, carry out teacher and administrator evaluations, and implement the district-adopted reading curriculum that incorporates the principles of reading research.
Two other goals call for the district to have a regularly updated and approved master plan for its facilities and a budget that does not require deficit spending.
Evidence of the district's efforts to meet the goals would be checked at the beginning, middle and end of the year.
In regard to planning for the coming school year, the Community Advisory Board will receive a report on the district staff's work to identify the "essential standards" that students at each grade likely missed at the end of this school year when they were away from in-school instruction. Those essential standards will be a starting point for instruction in the new school year.
Poore said Wednesday that he anticipates reporting to the advisory board on the areas identified by the district for using the more than $6 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act money.
Statewide, school districts and the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education will receive more than $128 million from the measure.
Little Rock district leaders are considering the purchase of laptop computers for teachers who need them, the purchase of Chromebooks and other computer devices for students who need them, and training for teachers in the areas of online teaching and providing emotional and emotional support to students who have experienced trauma because of the pandemic or other reasons.
Other possible expenditures would go toward personal protection equipment such as thermometers and dividers, and toward possible shifts in the way school meals are provided to students, such as more "grab-and-go meals."
The district would also like to use some of the federal grant to pay for the day camps the district is providing for children of the city's health care workers, Poore said.
Poore said the district is not trying to say what will happen with the opening of the new school year because so much is happening so quickly in regard to the pandemic.
"But I don't think virtual learning is going away," Poore said. "I don't think blended learning is going away. I think we have to get better at it. We don't know yet exactly what the governor or the Department of Health are going to say we can or can't do when August comes, but we have to be prepared for all things."
He said more of the staff must be comfortable with the nontraditional learning methods.
The survey of staff members and parents being distributed this week will give the district data and opinions on how the online delivery of instruction was carried out over the past several weeks. After that, focus groups will be formed to give district leaders feedback on plans that are developed for the resumption of school in August.
The Community Advisory Board will hold its regularly scheduled meeting at 5:30 p.m. using a virtual platform and can be viewed by the public on LRSDTV.org; the district's Facebook page; or on the district's cable television channels Comcast Channel 4 and U-verse Channel 99.
The Little Rock School District will host its public meetings virtually, until further notice.
Metro on 05/28/2020