By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Gov. Mike Beebe on today expressed support for the state Board of Education’s decision to delay action on an application for a new charter school in Little Rock because of concerns about the school’s potential impact on desegregation efforts.
The nine-member board voted Monday to wait until December to act on an application for the proposed Little Rock Urban Collegiate Public Charter School for Young Men. An attorney for the Little Rock School District argued that granting the application could adversely affect efforts by Pulaski County’s three public school districts to comply with the terms of a settlement in a long-running desegregation case.
Board Chairman Naccaman Williams of Springdale said Monday he may ask the attorney general’s office for an opinion on the matter.
Beebe, who served as attorney general for four years before being elected governor in 2006, said Tuesday the proposed school’s potential impact on the desegregation case is “absolutely” worth investigating.
“You look at everything and try to analyze everything, and the last thing we want is to get in trouble with the federal court,” Beebe told reporters when asked about the issue.
“I want out of that. I want the state to quit paying money under that desegregation settlement as fast as we can quit,” Beebe said.
Under a 1989 settlement, the state provides nearly $70 million a year to Pulaski County’s school districts to fund programs designed to promote desegregation.
Scott Smith, a former state Education Department lawyer who now is director of the Arkansas Public School Resource Center, argued Monday that the proposed school would not affect desegregation. The Little Rock School District has been declared unitary, or desegregated, Smith said.
Of the 18 open-enrollment charters the Education Board has approved, 11 are held by schools in Pulaski County.
The Education Board met Monday and today to consider eight applications for new open-enrollment charter schools. In addition to delaying action on the Little Rock Urban Collegiate Public Charter School for Young Men, the board granted an application to KIPP Delta Inc. to start an open-enrollment charter school in Blytheville and rejected six other applications.
The panel rejected applications for the proposed Guap Academy College Preparatory School in West Memphis, Dove School of Excellence in Springdale, Prism Education Center in Fayetteville, Friends Academy of the Health and Environmental Sciences in Little Rock, Gillett Heritage Academy in Gillett and e-BLAST Academy in McNeil.
