A teeming crowd of 150 jammed into a meeting room at the South Central Community Center Monday night to find out what these rumors about Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School are all about.
As the Little Rock School District struggles with declining enrollment and the existential threat of universal school vouchers, worry has been spreading that school closures lurk in the near future.
And during a recent round of community input, one idea that seemed to be gaining some traction had Parkview High School pulling up stakes from its campus on John Barrow Road and heading west, to a yet-to-be-built facility with a shiny new football stadium, a performing arts space and new classrooms. (Disclosure: I was at the meeting both as a journalist and a stakeholder. My son goes to Parkview, and my husband teaches there.)
The plan to transplant Parkview’s programs and students is no longer on the table, according to LRSD Superintendent Jermall Wright. Wright took the floor early in the meeting to address the rumors head-on. The community’s objections to that plan have been heard loud and clear, he said. The suggestion to move Parkview wholesale to a West Little Rock campus is no longer in the running.
The district is in the early stages of building a large new high school on Cantrell Road in far-west Little Rock on a site that’s currently home to a small high school, the 270-student West School of Innovation. When complete, the new high school will have room for 1,200 students. The LRSD board voted in November to move the West School of Innovation to the Hall High School campus — which only has about 300 students — while construction on the larger facility takes place.
But as meeting organizer and LRSD school board member Vicki Hatter said, Parkview will still feel the effects from the building of that campus. Unless there’s a significant influx of high school-aged students into the district, LRSD will have more high schools than it can fill once the West Little Rock campus opens. What then?
“What happens at one part of the city impacts the other parts,” Hatter said. She argued that moving ahead on a new 1,200-student campus for West Little Rock is not the best call. “The sacrifice is too great,” she said.
Construction cost estimates on that West Little Rock high school doubled since voters approved the millage to fund it in 2021. A project that was supposed to cost $85 million is now going to run $153 million, meaning less money will be available to update aging campuses elsewhere.
Hatter encouraged Monday’s meeting goers to chat up other school board members about an impending Dec. 14 vote, when they will have to decide whether to commit to building the new high school at the higher price.
One person in attendance asked whether some of that money could be used for athletic facilities at Parkview instead. “Parkview just brought home a state championship that they could not play at their school,” she pointed out. State 5A champions for the second year in a row, Parkview doesn’t have a stadium on campus, and plays their home games at War Memorial.
Retired Judge Alice Gray, whose children attended Parkview, came out Monday to advocate for the school, and for making sure predominantly Black schools don’t bear the brunt of the district’s inevitable belt-tightening to maintain its fiscal health in the face of decreasing enrollment and increasing debt service costs. Predominantly Black schools have been the ones to close in the past, she noted.
Western Hills, an elementary school not far from where the meeting took place Monday, is in danger of closing next.
Little Rock City Director Andrea Lewis, Rep. Fred Allen (D-Little Rock), Rep. Tara Shephard (D-Little Rock) and Rep. Jamie Scott (D-North Little Rock) were among the big names in the crowd. Tireless LRSD gadfly/advocate Jim Ross was there, too, along with fellow former LRSD board member Charlie McAdoo. All the chairs were claimed, and people stood in corners and along the back for the hour-and-a-half-long meeting. Parkview Principal Eric Henderson was among those listening from the back of the room.
A few young Parkview alumni came out to pledge support, resources and volunteer hours for their alma mater. Ken-Matt Martin, an accomplished director who’s worked in theaters across the country and is now artistic director at The Rep, said the arts education he got at Parkview propelled him to success, and he wants to help make sure other students get the same opportunity.
People took turns sharing ideas and hopes for not just Parkview, but also other LRSD campuses.
Poet and educator Leron McAdoo questioned the economics of building a new high school out west. “If I have more schools than students, why am I building another school?” he asked.
West Little Rock families have long campaigned for a high school of their own, and in 2021 Little Rock voters passed a millage to pay for it. But the double whammy of skyrocketing construction costs and the passage of the Arkansas LEARNS Act is giving some people pause.
LEARNS created a voucher program that essentially pays families a flat rate to not send their children to public schools. The program, now in its first year, will expand dramatically in Year 3 and provide a voucher to any family in the state who wants one. There’s no way to know how many families who are planning to choose the new LRSD high school out west will instead take their voucher and go private instead.
It’s an age-old battle, Little Rock public education grande dame Essie Middleton said. A legendary advocate for public education for decades, Middleton is troubled by the state of the district in 2023. “We have let vouchers and charters destroy LRSD,” she said.
Fellow legend Joyce Elliott, a former state senator, said now is the time to pitch ideas for change and think about things in different ways. The district has only two zoned high schools, Central and Southwest. The LRSD’s other three high schools — Parkview, Hall High, and the West School of Innovation — are all magnet programs, requiring students to apply to attend. What if we ditched the magnet model and drew attendance zones, Elliott mused.
“The reason we have magnets is to attract white students. That hasn’t worked so well,” she noted.
Hatter and community advocate Anthony Nichols encouraged everyone to contact other board members to advocate for keeping Western Hills open.
The Little Rock School Board will meet Dec. 14 to vote on whether to move forward with construction on the new West Little Rock high school campus.