A midyear assessment of the Little Rock School District's efforts to exit the highest level of intensive support category of the state's school accountability system produced mixed results, a report to the Arkansas Board of Education shows.
The 21,000-student district received scores ranging from 1 to 4 on a 4-point scale with 4 being the best. The ratings were applied to five areas of district operations, including staff collaboration and long-term budgeting.
The report was issued just as a Little Rock School Board has been elected and seated in the district that operated under state control without an elected governing body for nearly six years.
The state board, which took control of the district in January 2015 because six of the district's schools were in academic distress, voted in late 2019 to return the district to local governance but with restrictions until it can exit the "Level 5 -- intensive support" category of school accountability.
Until the district is removed from Level 5, the state board has said that the new School Board cannot file lawsuits, recognize a union as a bargaining agent for employees, alter the structure of the district's personnel policies committees or change superintendents without approval from the state board.
The midyear report was prepared by Stacy Smith, deputy commissioner of the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, for the state Education Board to review at its Jan. 15 meeting. Smith also heads the state agency's Office of Coordinated Support and Services that works directly with academically and financially struggling districts.
"The Little Rock School District continues to make progress on exit criteria established after reconstitution of the district," Smith and her staff wrote in the introduction to the report.
Smith and her staff have recently developed the 4-point scale for measuring a district's efforts for effective and efficient operations. The scale was first applied late last year in determining whether the Dollarway district in Jefferson County had reached a level of performance in its operation that warranted its release from state authority. The state board ultimately voted to annex the Dollarway district into the Pine Bluff district, which is also under state control.
The Little Rock district received in the midyear report a score of 3.6 for regular staff collaboration and teaming on issues of curriculum, instruction, testing and student achievement.
A 3.7 was given in regard to the district's carrying out of clear and ongoing staff evaluations based on multiple sources of data.
A 3.0 was awarded for the schools' adherence to state and district standards for literacy curriculum and instruction.
And, while the district received a 4 for its submission of a master facilities plan that was approved by the education secretary, the district received only a 1.0 and standard "not met" because of a lack of a projected three-year budget for long-term sustainability.
The midyear report on district efforts to exit Level 5 comes just when the newly elected School Board is being asked to ratify the exit plan that had been revised by state officials in 2019 in consultation with district leaders.
Little Rock Deputy Superintendent Jeremy Owoh said Wednesday that the exit plan is on the new School Board's Jan. 28 agenda.
Owoh told the board last month that a ratification vote will show "that you are in agreement and willing to move forward with the exit plan" and "that we are all on the same page."
The exit plan was previously ratified by the district's now-defunct state-appointed Community Advisory Board, which acted as an advisory board to Education Secretary Johnny Key who served in lieu of a school board in the district.
The current exit plan focuses on districtwide practices and does not rely on improvements in state-issued letter grades to individual schools within the district -- which were requirements in a much earlier plan for the release from state control.
"The updated criteria," Smith wrote, "allows the district to demonstrate to the Division of Elementary and Secondary Education, the state board, the newly elected LRSD board, and the community that LRSD is poised for the present and future academic success of its students."
In regard to the requirement for teacher collaboration and teaming, the state report said in part: "There is sufficient evidence that the district has embraced the professional learning communities model and has established foundational expectations, as well as support systems for various buildings that are at different stages of implementation."
The report offered as next steps to take: "The district needs to continue promoting and supporting the implementation of the professional learning community model."
As for the required employee evaluation systems, the report noted that the district has over four years established an expectation that there will be at least eight weekly informal observations of teachers per building by a principal with quality feedback given to the teachers.
Next steps for the district call for the district to continue to monitor and support school administrators as they support teachers to improve instruction. The strategies used by the district -- focus walks and tiered support structures -- are "reasonable" and have "the potential to identify and provide the needed support ... therefore decreasing the risk of a school falling through the cracks within a large school system."
Concerning the district's literacy program, the state evaluation found that the coronavirus pandemic caused some initial delays in training teachers in the science of reading but that adjustments were made and that the district has "stayed committed."
The district also has continued to improve the level of its dyslexia services and has hired an additional district level dyslexia specialist to support schools.
In the low-rated area of budgeting to avoid deficit spending, the state report noted the effect of the district's declining enrollment, loss of state desegregation aid and the pandemic on revenue. The report noted that the district reduced programs and personnel over time.
"These factors have created a need to continue developing feasible plans to reduce the district overall expenditures," the report states. "In interviews with the executive directors there was an awareness of over-staffing, duplicative high school programming and low numbers at several schools in the district."
As for next steps, the report states that the state agency will continue to work with the district this spring to create a projected three-year budget.
The report further noted that the district submitted a master facilities plan to the state as required of all school districts. The district's submission aligned with standing settlements in court cases and magnet and specialty schools.
Next steps call for consideration of an extension of the district's millage tax rate or adjustments to the facilities plan, the report said.
The midyear report anticipates that a follow-up, end-of-year report will be done.
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Results mixed on LRSD bid to exit support - Arkansas Online
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