Facing a ‘perfect storm’ of dropping enrollment, high construction costs and vouchers, LRSD strategizes a way forward

Facing a ‘perfect storm’ of dropping enrollment, high construction costs and vouchers, LRSD strategizes a way forward

Facing a ‘perfect storm’ of dropping enrollment, high construction costs and vouchers, LRSD strategizes a way forward

Hall High School made a fitting backdrop Friday morning for a community meeting about the future of Little Rock School District.

The history of this sizable midtown campus encompasses the many ways white and well-to-do parents strong-armed the drawing of attendance zones over the decades to suit their own whims, often to the detriment to the city as a whole. In the 1990s, LRSD high school attendance zones were redrawn to send students from the affluent Heights, Hillcrest and Robinwood neighborhoods to Central High. Central’s campus was miles farther away than Hall’s for many families, but it had more name recognition and gravitas.

The 1,600-capacity Hall campus has been through multiple permutations since then. Currently a science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics magnet, Hall has only 305 students this year. Parking was easy to find for the 8 a.m. meeting in the school library; students were not. The building felt nearly empty, because it was.

Declining enrollment districtwide, soaring construction costs and high interest rates on debt payments, has created what Superintendent Jermall Wright said was a perfect storm.

A slide he shared at Friday’s meeting makes the situation plain:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Delivering options that are “learner centered, educationally competitive and fiscally sound” is the goal, Wright said. The trick is doing all three at the same time.

So last month, the Little Rock School District kicked off “Reimagining LRSD: Optimizing Our Tomorrow” by asking for proposals from parents and community members to navigate these challenges. As of Nov. 10, the district has received 91 ideas. You can read them all here.

The submissions cover all sorts of topics, from what to do with the Western Hills Elementary campus when students are diverted to a new K-8 campus, to how to attract and retain students with athletic programs and philosophy classes. Some of the ideas are pretty great. We should absolutely let all middle school athletes who try out have a spot on the team! Reducing administrative overhead and expanding arts programs? Sounds good.

While the district and school board have some big decisions to make that will affect students in all grades, the round of community meetings happening this week and next week focus mainly on how we might shuffle high schools and administrative buildings to save money. This week, the board voted to move the West High School of Innovation to the Hall campus, making way for construction on a new high school to proceed at the West Little Rock site without students around to impede progress. But the Hall campus remains under capacity. And the district still needs to figure out which students will attend the new campus out west.

Voters approved a millage to fund this new West Little Rock high school campus in 2021. But things have changed a lot in the past two years. The Arkansas LEARNS voucher program created by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her Republican legislative supermajority this spring is already diverting money from public schools to private ones, and things will become worse when the program becomes available to all students in two years.

Thanks to universal vouchers, some fear that many of the West Little Rock families for whom the Little Rock School District’s new, $85 million campus is ostensibly being built will likely take their vouchers and go to private schools anyway.

PICKING FAVORITES: Attendees voted for their favorite ideas at the end of the meeting.

 

Early numbers suggest this fear might play out. Data from the Arkansas Department of Education shows that Little Rock families are already gobbling up state-funded vouchers and heading to private schools. Of the seven Arkansas private schools accepting the most vouchers in the state, four are in West Little Rock.

These are the Arkansas private schools accepting the most vouchers in the state in the LEARNS inaugural year.

 

 

The post Facing a ‘perfect storm’ of dropping enrollment, high construction costs and vouchers, LRSD strategizes a way forward appeared first on Arkansas Times.

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