In a special meeting Friday afternoon, the state Board of Education took a voice vote to hand over the daily duties to the Education Department. Previously, the agency had planned an outside entity to operate the district. Because of a court order that the Arkansas LEARNS Act can't start until Aug. 1, the state Education Department recommended its staff step in.
Officials said they need to prepare for the school year, which begins next month, since the work of the outside entity that was going to run the district on behalf of the state is now on pause. The district needs to hire staff, set a school calendar and plan bus routes quickly, among other matters, officials said Friday.
On April 13, the state Education Board took control of the Marvell-Elaine district and directed the state Education Secretary Jacob Oliva to explore entering into a “transformation contract” with a third party to operate the district as permitted by new state law.
The Arkansas LEARNS Act, or Act 237 of 2023, authorizes a school district that has a D- or F-rated school or is in need of “Level 5 — intensive support” to be exempted from sanctions if the school board contracts with a charter school or another third-party entity to operate a public school district transformation campus.
In a historic move May 5, the state Education Board had voted unanimously to direct Oliva to enter into a three-year contract with a Washington, D.C.-based charter management organization — FEF-Arkansas, an affiliate of the Friendship Education Foundation Inc. that sponsors open-enrollment charter schools in Little Rock and Pine Bluff to manage the Marvell-Elaine district in Phillips County. It marked the first time a charter management organization would supervise a traditional public school district in Arkansas.
A June 30 ruling from Pulaski County Judge Herbert Wright said the LEARNS Act cannot take effect until Aug. 1. A lawsuit had been filed May 8, seeking to delay when the LEARNS Act — Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ plan to overhaul public education — could take effect.
The plaintiffs, a group of Phillips County residents and two public education activists, argue lawmakers didn’t follow the Arkansas Constitution when approving the LEARNS Act’s emergency clause, a parliamentary move to make a law take effect immediately.
