Plans to double the number of Friendship Aspire Academy-Pine Bluff elementary charter school campuses from one to two received preliminary approval Tuesday from the state’s Charter Authorizing Panel.
The panel endorsed the plan for a new kindergarten-through-third-grade campus to be located at 700 S. Main St. in Pine Bluff.
Final approval must come from the state Board of Education, which will act on it later this year.
The new campus for primary grade students would enable the existing Friendship Aspire-Pine Bluff campus for grades kindergarten through five at 3911 S. Hazel St., to retain small class sizes, the application for the charter amendment states.
Phong Tran, superintendent of the Friendship Academy system, which has schools in Little Rock and Pine Bluff, told the panel the new downtown campus is near the Saracen Casino and Resort, giving casino employees convenient access to an elementary school for their children.
The request for a new campus comes with a request for an increase in the enrollment cap for the two campuses, from 480 to 880.
The panel gave its approval to the new enrollment cap and to the school plan for delivery of instruction to remote students.
Also Tuesday, the Charter Authorizing Panel gave its support to remote learning plans proposed by several conversion and open-enrollment charter school operators, including the Cabot School District, which runs the now 17-year-old Cabot Academic Center of Excellence charter school.
Others that received panel approval Tuesday for remote learning plans were:
• Cross County Elementary
• Cross County High School
• Scholarmade Achievement Place of Arkansas
• Premier High School of Little Rock
• Premier High School of North Little rock
• Batesville High School Charter