Charter-school support center planned
Posted on Thursday, May 22, 2008
The University of Central Arkansas and the Walton Family Foundation will establish a center to assist both public charter schools and traditional public school districts in rural communities.
University President Lu Hardin on Wednesday announced the Walton foundation grant of $ 426, 141 that will be used to plan for and develop a Little Rockbased Arkansas Public School Resource Center.
He said he believes the center will not only be an asset for Arkansas public education but a model for the nation.
An executive director and finance director for the public school resource center will be named by July 1, Hardin said.
The people being considered for the director’s position are “Arkansas education all-stars, who know the system backwards and forwards but at the same time have the creative ability to transcend the choking bureaucracy,” he said.
Faculty and staff from UCA in Conway will provide a range of services to participating schools and school districts. That assistance could be in financial management, facility planning, teacher training, student assessment, distance learning, data management, special education compliance and school lunch program requirements.
Of Arkansas’ 245 school districts, about 120 have 1, 000 or fewer students.
Arkansas’ open-enrollment charter schools are taxpayersupported public schools run by nonprofit organizations other than traditional school districts.
The schools — there are 10 this term while 17 will be open next fall — are operated according to a contract or charter with the state Board of Education.
The schools are exempted from some state rules and laws that govern traditional schools. In return for the exemptions, the schools are held to higher standards for student achievement. Arkansas law also permits the operation of conversion charter schools that are run by traditional school districts.
Luke Gordy, executive director of the Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation and a planner for the new resource center, said that the center’s developers have hired a national consultant to identify more specifically the needs of the different kinds of schools.
One of the founders of the Arkansans for Education Reform Foundation is Jim Walton, president of the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville.
The establishment of the partnership between the Walton foundation and UCA follows the closure in January of the Arkansas Charter School Resource Center, also a Walton foundation-funded operation, at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
That center focused largely on recruiting and guiding potential charter school operators through the state application process as well as providing support for the setup of charter schools once they were approved by the state Board of Education.
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