Parent demand for remote instruction causes Little Rock School District to consider short-term outsourcing

District seeks OK to hire firm for waiting list’s students

FILE — Little Rock School District headquarters are shown in this 2019 file photo.
FILE — Little Rock School District headquarters are shown in this 2019 file photo.

The Little Rock School District is poised to use an outside education business to provide online, remote instruction for students on waiting lists for the district's maxed-out Ignite Digital Learning Academies, particularly the online elementary academy.

The School Board will be asked at its 5:30 meeting tonight to authorize Superintendent Mike Poore to contract with the Pearson company's division for online and blended learning "if needed for the first semester that may extend into the second semester if the situation warrants."

The contract for the first semester is not authorized to exceed $600,000, according to materials prepared for the School Board. The district is expected to use federal covid relief money to pay that bill. The district is to receive almost $100 million in the special federal funding.

The number of students on the waiting lists for the new Ignite academies and who may ultimately be served by the Pearson organization is unsettled in this second week of the school year. Also unsettled are the numbers of additional teachers needed for the kindergarten through sixth grade at the Ignite Academy or on the waiting list. That number ranges from six to 13 teachers, depending on the final enrollment numbers.

The district reported late last week that there were 330 students on the two waiting lists for the Ignite online schools but the lists are subject to reduction as some students on the waiting list and enrolled in the Ignite academies may have actually returned to traditional campuses in the districts.

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Poore and Deputy Superintendent Keith McGee posted a video and sent out messages to parents Wednesday urging them to confirm the enrollment of their students in district schools or their students will be dropped from district rolls.

"LRSD is mindful of the current challenges related to the pandemic; however, state law requires that students must be dropped from their current schools and the District, after ten consecutive absences," the district warning states.

"This means if you have not been officially enrolled at Ignite Digital Academy and logged in, or physically attended your assigned school, LRSD will have to comply with the law and you will be dropped," the message continues. "This also includes any students in the waiting pool for Ignite."

The plan to outsource instruction for the waiting-list students to Pearson, an international education business, is the latest development in the capital city school district's monthslong effort to organize a new online instructional program that is separate from the traditional campuses.

"This is a challenge to the district -- the concerns with Ignite," McGee told the School Board late last week. "Our focus right now, our energy right now, is getting Ignite up and going, efficiently and effectively."

The new Ignite Digital Academy for kindergarten through sixth grade and the Ignite Academy for grades seven through 12 have been billed as the "LRSD's only virtual option." The two academies were born out of the covid-19 pandemic that saw teachers across the district having last school year to simultaneously teach remote and in-class students.

As the numbers of covid-19 cases surge in July and August and while the students under 12 continue to be ineligible for covid-19 vaccinations, the enrollment numbers for the district's Ignite academies soared. That has been the case with digital learning academies in other Arkansas districts, as well.

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The Little Rock district, to accommodate parents, did not put in place a registration deadline until Aug. 7, with a provision that those registering after that date would be placed on waiting lists for the schools.

Late last week there were 624 enrolled in the Ignite elementary academy with a waiting list of 208 and there were 434 enrolled in Ignite secondary with a waiting list of 122.

Those 330 on the waiting lists for remote instruction and not attending their traditional schools are being counted absent in compliance with state laws, according to district leaders. Those absent students are subject to losing their enrollment status in the district.

The academies themselves are still working through challenges to get up and fully running.

The district has been working to hire and re-assign teachers from elsewhere in the district to support the enrolled online students. One kindergarten teacher and one first grade teacher were hired out of retirement and at least two teachers were reassigned to digital instruction from elsewhere in the district, McGee has said.

More teachers from traditional schools may be pulled in to the academy once a determination of their student workloads is completed, McGee has said. Because the academy enrollment does not sever the student's tie to his or her traditional school, teachers at the traditional schools may have students on paper but those students may actually be doing school work through the digital academies -- possibly making a teacher assigned to a traditional school available to take care of an Ignite class.

At the secondary level, McGee said there is more flexibility in staffing. The district has been able to recruit teachers from elsewhere in the district to teach needed sections of math for academy students in addition to their on-site students. The required oral communications course is covered by combining it with a Freshman Seminar class, and an art teacher was being sought.

The unique structure of the academies in terms of allowing students to retain their connection to their regular schools has presented complications.

In the early days of this school year, Ignite students and their parents have been unable to access the Schoology online learning system from which they receive and turn in their online school work. The Schoology connection was through the student's brick and mortar school.

The district has worked to re-assign the students to Ignite to allow for Schoology as well as to ease attendance-taking and grade-book reporting. Attendance and grade reporting also have been tied to the students' home schools.

District leaders began the planning for Ignite academies last winter and received state approval for them this summer.

The Little Rock plans allow students and their families to enroll in the Ignite programs without losing their seats for this year at their assigned brick-and-mortar schools. As the number of cases of covid-19 surged in the state in July and August, so did the number of enrollees in the digital academies -- to the point that the district stopped enrolling students as of Aug. 7 and began the waiting lists.

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