Private school has big plans, gets humble start
Posted on Monday, September 22, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/238104/
HOT SPRINGS — The brochure for the Hot Springs Christian School promises studies in fine arts, music, theology and business. It shows students with sparkling white teeth sitting by bowls of fruit, playing guitar and peering into a microscope.
Older students will learn lessons entirely online.
That’s the vision Bill Vining Jr. has for his new private Christian school that began classes this month. But it’s not what the 41 students are getting — at least not yet.
Classes are held in a halfcentury-old building that looks and smells its age after sitting empty for several years. Multiple grades mix in classrooms sparsely filled with a mishmash of used furniture.
There is no science lab or music instruction.
During the first week of school, just a handful of books sat on the library’s shelves. And the school didn’t offer a single computer for students to use.
Vining, founder and superintendent of the nonprofit and nondenominational school, acknowledges it’s a humble start.
But if things go as planned, classes of college-ready students will graduate with 4. 0 grade-point averages whose curriculum was tailored to their individual needs. And with a related venture, the Arkansas Prep School, he hopes to help high school graduates with bad grades and good sports skills get better test scores and even athletic scholarships so they can go to college.
Many elements of his approach to education are unique for Arkansas, private and public education officials say. And some of that approach is untested, leaving some education experts unsure of what to make of the schools.
But Vining is so confident that his approach will prove successful that he has plans to expand his brand of teaching across the state. He expects to open schools, starting with grades seven through 12, in Little Rock, Malvern and Arkadelphia next year.
“That’s why I have bags under my eyes,” he said with a smile.
The former private- and public-school teacher who most recently worked at the now-defunct Crossgate Christian Academy just outside of Hot Springs, sees a need in Arkansas education. He says the “system is broken.”
Too many students enter college unprepared and leave without a degree, Vining points out. Indeed, Arkansas ranks next to last in the number of residents with college degrees, with only West Virginia lagging behind. The state spent $ 53. 8 million remediating students in 2006.
A state task force aimed at increasing the number of Arkansans with bachelor’s degrees suggested the state spend $ 95 million from 2010 to 2015 to try and keep more students in college with the goal of raising the number of degrees by 64 percent.
Vining sees his schools as being able to help meet that end. He charges $ 4, 500 annual tuition per student for kindergarten through 12 th grade and $ 10, 000 a year from each prep school student.
THE CURRICULUM There are some familiar sights at the Hot Springs Christian School. Elementary pupils use crayons and construction paper, pencils and paper. Their classrooms are decorated with colorful posters and inspirational signs. But once students enter the seventh grade, only online studies are planned, though they’ll continue attending class at the school. The Christian school is the first in Arkansas to use the New American School curriculum, a Web-based program started in Texas that has been used by home-schooled students for several years.
There are no textbooks and no microscopes. But students will eventually link up with people in the community to do things such as music and art, Vining says.
The New American School writes and grades tests and provides mentors who correspond with students by e-mail.
“For a school to use our program comprehensively, meaning they take the entire package — essentially outsourcing their school to us — this is the second school to do this,” said Kuni Beasley, founder of the New American School.
The idea of distance or Webbased learning gets positive marks from Jay Greene, head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
“It sounds like this school is tapping into what is, in fact, a very innovative approach to education,” Greene said.
But he’s never heard of the New American School and said he doesn’t know enough about the Christian school to fully weigh in.
One pitfall with distance education, Greene said, is that there aren’t “rigorous evaluations to know if it’s working well.
“ But it’s a promising idea, even if it’s not a proven idea,” he said. Patrick Wolf, who studies school choice in the Department of Education Reform, also had some reservations about the model, saying it’s untested yet interesting. “I can’t really predict how well this school is going to do,” he said.
Greene noted that there are barriers to Web-based education in Arkansas’ public schools due to state regulations. The Arkansas Virtual Academy, the first and only public charter school in the state to offer a computerbased curriculum, allows students to work from home.
But the state has capped “virtual school” enrollment at 500 students, meaning that sort of distance learning won’t grow in public schools without a legislative change.
Beasley said his New American School curriculum has a proven record of preparing students for college. He says students who have used his curriculum have gone to numerous colleges and universities, including the University of Texas, the U. S. Air Force Academy and Baylor University.
UA-Fayetteville has also admitted students who have earned the New American School diploma, said Steve Voorhies, a spokesman for the university. He said the university wouldn’t have any trouble admitting students from the new Christian school if their grade-point averages and ACT scores were adequate.
Katie Suit said she is confident her 10 th-grade son will earn straight A’s at the Christian school.
Suit, an administrative assistant at the school, said the curriculum is designed to force students to learn all of the material and earn top grades. She said parents have to sign special waivers to allow students to move ahead with the curriculum without learning 100 percent of the material in a given lesson.
And while the school is not affiliated with any church or organization, she said she knows her son will learn in a good environment with no “situational ethics.”
PREP SCHOOL Vining’s prep school is different from traditional preparatory schools since it enrolls young men who already have earned their high school diplomas but don’t have the grades or money to go to college. He said the 60 young men in the school this year are from low-income families and will find jobs in the community to pay their tuition. Women may be allowed to enroll in the future. The teens are bunking in apartments in Little Rock and Jonesboro. The prep school staff helps them through the New American School’s academic program designed to boost their ACT scores.
“There is a real identified need out there for this kind of thing,” said Julie Johnson Thompson, spokesman for the state Department of Higher Education.
She didn’t know of any public school in the state offering a socalled 13 th year.
Wolf, with the Department of Education Reform, agreed the prep school seems unique.
“This strikes me as a very interesting and possibly a very appropriate alternative to the current ways that underprepared high school graduates” are ushered into remedial classes at community colleges or four-year schools, he said. TWO RULES, NO OVERSIGHT
There are two rules at Vining’s schools: Love your neighbor, and love God.
As far as rules imposed by the state ? There are none. The Department of Education doesn’t monitor or evaluate private schools’ curriculum or student performance.
Vining is not seeking any type of accreditation, either. He says his curriculum will “exceed minimum standards.”
“The format just doesn’t match our accreditation procedures,” said Beverly Gray, executive director of the Arkansas Nonpublic School Accrediting Association, which has accredited 70 private schools.
Kathy Shreck, who has enrolled her 12 th-grade and ninthgrade sons in the school, said she is certain her children can get into the colleges of their choice after graduating from the Hot Springs Christian School.
When she moved her family to Hot Springs from the Memphis suburbs, she was looking for a school that would let her sons work at their own pace and help them earn college credit.
“We’re really excited about the kids going there,” she said. “We enrolled them because we really like the way that the educational process there works. It’s really progressive.”