LINCOLN --Lincoln Consolidated School District will ask the state to approve seven waivers to give schools flexibility in meeting some of their goals.
The leadership team for the district met with Lincoln School Board members during a work session last week to discuss the waivers and answer any questions. The luncheon meeting lasted about 11/2 hours.
A waiver means a school has approval to deviate from state standards and rules placed on all public schools.
Superintendent Mary Ann Spears explained that Lincoln is able to request the waivers because some of its students attend classes through the Arkansas Virtual Academy, at Haas Hall in Fayetteville and at Ozark Montessori Academy. These schools already have the waivers being requested by Lincoln.
Lincoln administrators presented their requests to the state Board of Education in Little Rock on Thursday but Spears did not know when the state Board would make a decision. As part of the request, the school has to provide an explanation for why it is making the request and how it will benefit teachers and students.
Ideally, Spears told school board members, Lincoln's requests should be approved because many other school districts in the state already are using these waivers. She said, however, that she did not want to speak on behalf of the state Board.
Spears also noted that even if all seven waivers are approved, it does not mean the school would use them immediately but they would be in place if needed in the future.
Courtney Jones, Lincoln High School principal, said the waivers are part of the district's plan to have personalized learning plans for each student, primarily in middle school and high school grades. The goal, said Jones, is to have students career and college ready by the time they graduate high school.
School districts in Northwest Arkansas as a whole are moving toward more personalized learning for students and Lincoln wants to be involved in that process, administrators said.
Personalized plans may include more technical courses with the possibility of being certified in certain skills, such as welding, or more advanced classes or classes that would provide college credit. Other ideas are internships, community service, job shadowing opportunities or online courses.
Sarah Simmons, a master teacher at the high school, told board members, "We want them to walk out of our doors with more skills and ready with a plan."
Jones explained the changes this way: "Let's start serving kids, instead of kids serving time."
Wes Newby, also a high school master teacher, pointed out Lincoln is competing with other schools in the region.
"Our students have got to have more than just a diploma," Newby said.
Most of the waivers would give schools more flexibility in scheduling staff and students. For example, the district is asking for a waiver from the requirement to give teachers in K-6 a duty-free lunch period. (The high school already has this waiver.) This would allow teachers to be available for intervention and instruction. Teachers would continue to have a lunch time but it may not be a designated 30-minute uninterrupted, duty-free lunch period daily.
At the meeting, administrators said many teachers actually are already doing this. They work with individual students during their lunch time or they will sit in the classroom while a club meets during the lunch period.
The district also is asking to be allowed to use qualified people certified in their fields as teachers. By state law, teachers have to be licensed by the state to teach in Arkansas schools. Examples of this would be to use a qualified and certified electrician or plumber teaching a class or a registered nurse teaching a class.
"Flexibility in licensure allows Lincoln High School to employ industry experts and native speakers to ensure the best education experience," the waiver request states.
Other waivers requested are to allow a school's media specialist to be involved in classrooms co-teaching or assisting and to allow grades 3-6 to be exempt from the mandatory size for classrooms. The class size would not exceed 33 per period or a total of 165 in the school day.
The seventh waiver asks that the district be exempt from the requirement to teach keyboarding, technology communications and other computer related classes in grades 5-8. The district explains that because all students have their own laptop computers, they are learning and using computer skills throughout the day in their classrooms.
Board President Kendra Moore asked most of the questions about the waivers. Moore pointed out school administrators have been studying changes for the past year and she is just learning about them.
She said she wanted to make sure the district was doing its best job for staff and students. Another concern was that the district could afford some of the waivers, in particular any costs to use non-licensed people to teach specific classes.
She asked if the district could implement some changes in 2016-17 and look at the results.
Simmons told Moore that she has studied the proposals and gone to other schools using some of these waivers.
"I can promise you, we would never do a schedule change just for the sake of a schedule change. We would never do it if we didn't think it would benefit the kids," Simmons said.
It's possible some ideas may be tweaked, Simmons said, "but we will take care of the kids."
Moore said her questions were not to criticize but to make sure she was doing a good job of what she's been assigned to do as a school board member.
General News on 04/20/2016