CHARTER SCHOOL IS STILL WORK IN PROGRESS

By Jeannie Nugent/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

The steps leading to the front door of the new Hope Academy Charter School on West Second Avenue may still be under construction and crews may still be hard at work putting some minor finishing touches on the interior, but students showed up bright and early Monday morning eager for the school’s historic first day to begin.

“It was nothing what I expected,” said Earl Glass, the school’s director. “The parking lot was full and people couldn’t find a space. Everybody was wanting to come in and look at the new building. It was exciting.”

A teacher tapes a notebook-paper sign that read “Girls” on one of the new restroom doors.

“The sad thing is that we’ve bought signs, but we just haven’t had time to put them up,” Glass laughed.

The classrooms, stocked with shiny new desks, were packed with excited students in a sea of khaki pants and polo shirts in yellow, white and even pink.

“I’m really thrilled how things turned out. They’ve really taken off. Parents were calling this morning wanting to enroll their children,” Glass said.

Monday was the culmination of several years of rolling up their sleeves and diving head first into the grueling — and expensive — process of gaining approval from the Arkansas Department of Education. It was hard to get parents to register their children at first, Glass said, because of the misconception that charter schools are high-priced private institutions.

Hope Academy is one of 17 charter schools in the state. Like the others, it is a public school that does not charge tuition for attending. The charter school format was established in 1995 as an alternative to typical public education. These schools are still under the state’s jurisdiction and are held to a high level of accountability, but are given more freedom to implement creative approaches to raising student achievement.

Hope Academy defines its innovation by extending its hours from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, creating a strong parent-school relationship component, committing to a teacher-to-student ratio of 20-to-1 and utilizing non-traditional teaching methods.