Charter panel OKs 2 statewide virtual schools

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Charter Authorizing Panel on Tuesday endorsed proposals to establish two statewide virtual schools, one for high school students and the other for kindergarten through 12th grades.

Both of the proposals are subject to final approval by the Arkansas Board of Education as soon as next month for starting in August.

The two proposed schools would be additions to two already existing charter systems in Arkansas that are sponsored by Responsive Education Solutions, a charter management organization based in Texas.

The panel voted in support of the Founders Classical Academy plan to open a virtual or online school that would grow to as many as 500 students in kindergarten through 12th grades over three years.

The Founders charter system has existing, traditional building campuses in Bentonville, enrollment 956, and Little Rock, enrollment 135, with a third campus to open later this year in Rogers. With the request for the virtual school addition, the Founders Classical Academy is also asking for an increase in the system’s overall 2,500-student enrollment cap to 3,000 students.

Premier High Schools of Arkansas — with existing or soon-to-open campuses in Little Rock, Fort Smith and Texarkana — received preliminary approval Tuesday for a virtual high school that would serve up to 250 high school students. Premier High Schools are considered second-chance schools for students who were not successful in traditional high schools for a variety of reasons.

The Premier system is asking for a 250-student increase in the enrollment cap to accommodate the virtual school — from 625 to 875 students.

If approved by the state, the two proposed virtual schools would be the fourth and fifth online schools in the state. Arkansas Virtual Academy, Arkansas Connections Academy and the LISA Academy Arkansas Hybrid School are already in operation. The LISA Hybrid school offers a mix of virtual instruction but requires students to be onsite for a half day every other week for intervention and enrichment.

Susan Provenza, Arkansas State Director of the Founders Classical Academies of Arkansas, told the Charter Authorizing Panel that Founders Online school is intended to provide students with a high-quality, college-preparatory virtual education that will also feature best digital learning practices and wraparound services.

“As it stands right now unless you live in central Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas, you don’t have access to a public classical school,” Provenza also said. “This would enable us to provide that access across the state.”

She said that an online school with teachers specifically trained for online instruction would be a benefit to students, as would programs and extracurricular activities especially designed for the online environment.

Teachers will have the ability to focus on one method of delivering instruction and one set of students, rather than having to juggle both teaching online and in-person, she also said.

The panel’s newest member, Kim Davis, asked about how school operators will expand what he said is the “critically important culture” of the existing Arkansas Classical Academy to an online school. Provenza said that will be done with synchronous teaching, or teaching in real time, which will be offered along with asynchronous teaching, which is recorded for viewing online at a student’s convenience.

“We will pull some of that culture in when students have collaboration time — when they meet together virtually,” Provenza also said, adding that pockets of Founders Online students may periodically gather in different parts of the state to do some of the activities that occur in brick-andmortar schools.

Panel member Eric Flowers asked Provenza how the school will identify when students need intervention services. Provenza said teachers will be trained to observe and provide for students in need.

Dennis Felton, Arkansas director of the Premier High Schools of Arkansas, told the panel that the Premier High School Online would provide a unique, high quality personalized education on a virtual platform.

“We want to continue to work toward our mission,” Felton said. “We want to continue to have innovative academic program access for our students. We want to continue to work toward decreasing the drop-out rate across the state and getting some of these disengaged, marginalized youth back into the educational fold.”

Felton said that as Premier High Schools have expanded the number of its brick-andmortar campuses in the state, families have responded with interest in those campuses and virtual instruction. More than 130 of the Premier High School students currently are being served online in either a full- or part-time way, he said.

The online instruction is here to stay as there will always be a significant percentage of students and families desiring the virtual option, Felton said.

In response to questions about how to provide extra support to online students who have a history of academic struggles, Felton said Premier High campuses are intentionally designed to be small and to feature not only teachers, but also student engagement specialists who have day-to-day contact with students and families about student progress. There are also college and career coaches for the students.

“We are always thinking about relationships,” he said about school personnel and students.

He said that the covid pandemic has shown that virtual connections are effective and a new norm.

“As it stands right now unless you live in central Arkansas or Northwest Arkansas, you don’t have access to a public classical school.”

—Susan Provenza, Arkansas State Director of the Founders Classical Academies of Arkansas