x
Breaking News
More () »

Tensions boil between eStem Charter, UA Little Rock as schools share campus

University leaders are calling the arrangement “out of balance,” with the high schoolers getting to attend class on a big city campus.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Reality is catching up with ambitious proposal that placed the eStem Charter High School right in the middle of the UA – Little Rock campus. The infusion of 500 teens has caused growing pains.

University leaders are calling the arrangement “out of balance,” with the high schoolers getting to attend class on a big city campus, but college students are sour on sharing dining and common areas.

“We're a campus and we're a research university. We're not a high school,” said Dr. Andrew Rogerson, chancellor of UA-Little Rock. “Our facilities now, it's becoming evident with just 500 high school students, we are overcrowded and it’s causing problems for our own students.”

Rogerson predecessors conceived giving the stem-focused high school students a leg up toward college about five years ago. The schools broke ground in 2016 and the first class started in 2017. Traffic complaints and crowded cafeterias have faculty leaders raising alarms and students signing petitions.

“It definitely is a problem and I know that our students are definitely feeling the discomfort of the congestion in our shared spaces,” said Dr. Amanda Nolen, an education professor and president of the Faculty Senate. “There’s benefit for both institutions where both could grow the partnership. Right now it feels unbalanced and strained.”

Leaders of the charter school acknowledge the challenges.

“We had a vision and we still have a vision and we still hope to see it come to full fruition for our students,” said Dr. John Bacon, CEO of eStem who says everyone involved continues to work on solutions while focusing on staying on track to send more high schoolers there. “We're not planning to scale back. We have students that are in our system in our elementaries and junior highs and as those students matriculate toward high school the numbers will be there.”

But for Rogerson, someone is going to have to provide more money to make it work, because he says his school is losing on the deal.

“It was an interesting experiment, but like all experiments - and I'm a scientist - you don't always predict the outcome,” he said. “We’re now having a real challenge.”

A plan to turn part of the old University Shopping Center into a dining hall isn't going to work because it costs too much money to upgrade the building.

The Walton Foundation, headed by the heirs to the Walmart fortune, helped fund the high school, and they have been among the stakeholders negotiating over a solution.

Before You Leave, Check This Out