The Arkansas Board of Education will hold a special meeting at 2 p.m. Friday to consider contracting with a third-party organization to manage the day-to-day operation of the state-controlled 306-student Marvell-Elaine School District in Phillips County.
The announcement of the meeting by the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education states that the Education Board “will consider allowing the Marvell-Elaine District to enter into a transformation contract with the Friendship Education Foundation.”
The Arkansas Board of Education on April 14 voted to assume authority of the 306-student Marvell-Elaine School District in Phillips County.
The board at the same time directed state Education Secretary Jacob Oliva to explore entering into a transformation contract with a third-party organization to operate the district as permitted by the new Arkansas LEARNS Act.
That law, Act 237 of 2023, authorizes a school district that has a D- or F-rated school or is in need of “Level 5 — intensive support” to be exempted from related sanctions, such as consolidation with another district, if the school board contracts with a charter school or another entity to operate a public school district transformation campus.
Marvell-Elaine meets both criteria as it is in Level 5 of the state’s accountability system and both its elementary and high schools have state-applied F grades on an A-F scale.
Three organizations — including the Friendship Education Foundation — responded to Oliva’s invitation to submit a notice of interest in becoming a third-party manager of the Marvell-Elaine system.
The special meeting will be held in the Arch Ford Education Building auditorium, 4 Capitol Mall. The Thursday announcement of the meeting did not include a draft or any details of what could be the first such contract of its kind in Arkansas.
The Friendship foundation is the sponsoring organization of open-enrollment charter schools in Little Rock and Pine Bluff and soon in North Little Rock.
The foundation on three occasions has absorbed, or is absorbing, open-enrollment charter school students from charter campuses started by other organizations. Those were the Covenant Keepers in Little Rock, Southeast Arkansas Preparatory School in the 2020-21 school year and, in the upcoming 2023-24 school year, Lighthouse Charter Elementary and Middle school students in Pine Bluff and Capital City Lighthouse School students in North Little Rock.
The Education Board meeting will be live-streamed at https://bit.ly/39EiaSY.