The Arkansas State Board of Education is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to review the Little Rock School District’s progress addressing its six schools in academic distress.
Little Rock School Board member Leslie Fisken recently sent a letter to State Board of Education member Vicki Saviers describing the local school board as “dysfunctional.”
Other school board members have contested Fisken’s characterization. State Board of Education president Sam Ledbetter says while a state takeover is one possible solution to the problem of academic distress, the state has alternative methods to help districts.
“The Department of Education has school improvement specialists that are working with each of these schools and the staff in those schools to make sure they are using effective strategies, they are reviewing those strategies and looking at what’s working, what’s not working and making the appropriate changes and that type of thing,” said Ledbetter.
According to Ledbetter, there are no specific legal criteria to guide the State Board of Education’s decision on whether to take over the district. “Before anything is done the district is entitled to notice of what the board is considering, but beyond that there is not a time frame that is set forth about when these decisions can be made,” he said.
The state board has the authority to take over a district if any schools are deemed as academically distressed.
The Arkansas Department of Education has deemed Baseline Elementary, Cloverdale Middle, Henderson Middle, Hall High, J.A. Fair High and McClellan High as academically distressed.
