LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - A Monday afternoon meeting of the Charter Authorizing Panel at the Arkansas Department of Education began to put one Little Rock school on notice and ended with another potential school rushing to get heard.
Rockbridge Montessori Charter School has a month to answer for financial problems or risk having their charter revoked.
“It's nothing you want to hear, but at the same time it's a call,” said Will Felton, superintendent of the K-7th Grade school, when he found out the night before that he needed to appear before the panel.
It’s been a rocky road all three years since the school with 120 students opened at the corner of W. Roosevelt and Main St. in Little Rock.
“This school was on probation when I took over in July, and then we worked really hard and we were released from probation on those issues,” he said.
But problems linger.
The panel is worried the school will have a negative balance at the end of this school year. That's against the rules. It stems from how many kids and enroll and then stay enrolled in the non-traditional program.
“The number of students here is always a challenge,” Felton said. “Making sure that the Montessori model fits within the Arkansas state standards is another one that we've really been working on.”
After hearing specifics about the financial problems, Felton said he expected them to be cleared up in time for the next scheduled meeting May 16.
As the seven members of the panel began to wrap up the meeting, a group from Friendship Aspire Academy asked to muscle on to the agenda.
“They're interested in moving the timeline up so that they can start their Little Rock campus also in the fall of [2018],” said Dr. Alexandria Boyd, the director of charter schools for the ADE.
Friendship plans to open in Pine Bluff this year but penciled in a Little Rock school in 2019. That was until Einstein Charter Schools abandoned plans to move into the old Garland school building. After getting a call from others in the “small charter school family,” administrators from Friendship saw an opportunity and wanted to move quickly.
"The building will be ready August 1,” said Joe Harris, the executive director of the national foundation behind the system that runs three other charter schools in New Jersey, Baltimore and Louisiana. “We will have the school ready to go and open for our kids August 13th.”
However, Friendship needed approval to amend their charter request to move in a year early. The panel tried to start the process, but regulations quickly got in the way. Superintendent Michael Poore of the Little Rock School District had not been informed of the meeting and state Education Secretary Johnny Key would need to grant a waiver to allow the company to make a case.
Key declined to grant a waiver, so a planned meeting the following morning got canceled. It leaves Harris and Friendship in a bind in their hopes of accepting 100 kindergarten students after this upcoming summer vacation.
“There are far too many [kindergarten] slots for parents not opening up,” Harris said. “Not opening in August where the commission and the district have already made a commitment to will mean going without proper education and parents would have fewer choices for education.”