Proposed closure of south Arkansas’ Sparkman High School will get hearing this week

The point out Board of Instruction will carry out a listening to Thursday on no matter if to permit the Harmony Grove School District to shut Sparkman Higher University and transfer the seventh-by means of-12th-grade college students to Harmony Grove Substantial University.

The partial closure of the Sparkman campus would be economically sound and much more sensible owing to declining enrollment, Superintendent Albert Snow and University Board President Matthew Nutt said in the district’s petition to the condition.

Opposition to the transfer counters that the college district unsuccessful to stick to procedures in an try to speed up the closure about a thirty day period in advance of students and lecturers report to college and challenged the rationale for the action.

The Sparkman campus — which incorporates an elementary faculty and a superior university — is component of the Harmony Grove University District, the result of a 2005 voluntary annexation. The Sparkman campus is about 25 miles from Harmony Grove Superior Faculty.

On April 26, the Harmony Grove School Board voted 5-2 to partly shut the Sparkman campus. Students in grades 7 by means of 12 would relocate to the district’s Harmony Grove campus. Pupils in grades kindergarten through sixth would keep on being at the Sparkman campus. On June 9, the board adopted a resolution further outlining the plan.

The cost of working the Sparkman campus is $1,127,426.52 yearly, according to the district’s petition to the condition. The secondary-degree pupils must acquire some digital classes to attain main class credits, or divide their day to commuting to and from the Sparkman campus to Harmony Grove. In the earlier 12 months, Snow claimed, the ninth-through-12th grade students received in-person instruction in two topics: English and arithmetic.

“Almost everything else was digital,” Snow stated in the petition.

Of 40 Sparkman learners in grades 7 by means of 12, up to 15 traveled to the Harmony Grove campus for a live, in-man or woman course, an extracurricular activity or vocational coaching.

Snow also reported it really is difficult to sustain instructors at Sparkman since academics are necessary to instruct numerous programs. At Sparkman, the media centre director and the principal all instruct lessons, he stated.

Enrollment is declining at Sparkman.

No kindergartners are registered for subsequent month’s begin of classes, Snow said, and the complete enrollment at the Sparkman campus for the commencing of the university year in August “is expected to tumble under 80.”

Enrollment has been on a downward cycle at Sparkman for the last handful of yrs, with “several learners in the Sparkman zone college-preference to [the] neighboring Arkadelphia Faculty District.”

Sparkman Substantial College enrollment was 118 in 2019-20, 97 in 2020-21 and 40 in 2021-22, according to the petition for closure.

“The development is clear. Sparkman is getting rid of enrollment and academic products and services are not able to be adequately sent at the Sparkman Campus,” Snow and Nutt wrote in the petition.

The district has experimented with to near Sparkman just before, but the neighborhood fought back again.

Sparkman alumni, college students and dad and mom beckoned the point out Board of Education and learning on March 12, 2020, to hold the campus open up. The point out board voted 4-3 to retain it open.

The intent of the vote to preserve Sparkman operating was to give the district leaders and Sparkman leaders “a probability to provide imaginative solutions to the troubles experiencing an isolated college,” the opposition group said in a collective report to the point out board and point out Education and learning Division.

“That second of assure evaporated owing to [the Harmony Grove School District’s] redoubled actions to degrade schooling in Sparkman.”

Opponents to the closure stated that the district, between other issues:

• Tried to partially close the campus with out very first going to the board.

• Expedited the issue without right time notifications.

• Failed to clearly show closing Sparkman would be in the most effective pursuits of all students, which includes those touring in from Clark and Dallas counties.

• Did not check out to get the job done on options with the Sparkman neighborhood through the final two decades.

“Closing 7-12 grades at Sparkman is the incorrect remedy,” the opposition group mentioned in its remarks to the point out Training Board. “Every rural school district in Arkansas faces problems. Other districts put into practice creative answers to deliver a good quality education and learning to their students as a substitute of concentrating their attempts on shutting the university down.”

The challenge of closing Sparkman is in the courts.

Seventy citizens in or around Sparkman sued the district on June 21, inquiring a Ouachita County Circuit Court judge to prevent, for now, the district from likely forward with its petition for closure to the state “for the reason that its assembly and almost everything [the district] did at that [June 9] conference are void.”

A circuit court listening to is scheduled for July 20, the opposition team explained.

The condition Instruction Board’s conference, during which the Sparkman listening to will be held, commences at 10 a.m. Thursday.