Members of the Little Rock School District's Community Advisory Board on Thursday greeted a draft plan for the district's exit from the state's Level 5/intensive support classification with some optimism and questions about timelines.
"My initial thought is that this is friendly to the district's efforts to exit," Jeff Wood, the advisory board chairman, said after hearing a description of the draft that calls for evidence of employee evaluations, structured systems of teacher collaboration, and adherence to the standards of a reading instruction program.
The draft plan also calls on the district to have a regularly updated and approved master plan for its facilities and a budget that does not require deficit spending.
The exit proposal, which is still subject to review by the state Board of Education, was presented during a meeting in which district leaders:
• Announced plans for summer school for elementary and high school students,
• Reported on district preparations for the 2020-21 school year in terms of "essential standards" in math and English/language arts to be taught in each grade or course.
Wood said he didn't want to say that it would be "easy" for the district to meet the requirements of the draft exit plan but he noted that each of the program's financial and facility initiatives are already underway.
Mike Poore, the district's superintendent, said the proposed requirements are foundational for the operation of any school district.
Mike Hernandez, the state superintendent in the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education's office of coordinated support and services, told the advisory board that the exit proposal was developed after the state Education Board late last year voted to reconstitute the Little Rock district that has operated under state control since 2015.
The state board voted to return the governance of the 23,000-student district to a nine-member school board that is to be elected Nov. 3 but that the board will be restricted in some areas of its authority until the district is released from the Level 5/intensive support category of the state's accountability system.
Hernandez told the advisory board that he and his staff began immediately to work with district leaders on the plan to move the system out of Level 5 support. The draft plan differs from a previous exit plan for the district in that it has a districtwide focus rather than focus on the district's schools that have state-issued F letter grades. Those letter grades were based largely on the results from the ACT Aspire tests, which were not given this past school year because of the coronavirus pandemic that caused the statewide closure of all schools in mid-March.
"This has very much been a collaborative effort, trying to build on the successes that we did see in the eight schools that showed improvement on the previous test scores," Hernandez said.
"We believe the leadership team that Mr. Poore has assembled is a good one," he continued. "We have the district moving in a good direction. We want to make sure that the plans that we have set will be continued by the district and sustained ... for the long term when the new board is put in place."
The plan calls for evidence at the beginning of the coming school year, at midyear and at the end of the year that the initiatives are in place and that there is buy-in from the different groups in the district and that the newly elected school board has a good working knowledge of the elements.
"It's kind of running track and passing the baton," he said. "We're all racing in the same direction and trying to do what is right and improve things for students," he said. "We want to be able hand that baton off and get them moving in the same direction as well," he said about the new board.
In response to questions from advisory board members Michael Mason, Jerrilyn Jones and LaShannon Spencer, Hernandez said that the plan is in draft form and could be tweaked. He expects the state Education Board to review it at the June meeting.
He also said that the release of the district could come at midyear or at the end of the school year, depending on the evidence of implementation and on student academic progress as shown by tests such as the Northwest Education Association's Measure of Academic Progress, which the district gives about three times a school year.
Reports Thursday night to the advisory board on the establishment of essential standards to be taught at a minimum in each grade or high school subject area, and plans for on-site elementary school, prompted some discussion of plans for reopening schools in August for all students.
Wood said parents are hungry to hear more about plans for the new school year -- even if the plans are fluid -- and craving to give input on restarting school and their concerns.
Hope Worsham, the district's executive director of curriculum, noted that the district is currently surveying teachers and parents about the instructional program this spring and will form focus groups of parents and teachers to get more in-depth responses to concerns and plans for the new school year.
Metro on 05/29/2020