ADE Briefs

The Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation Commission will meet at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 16, in the auditorium of the Arkansas Department of Education at Four Capitol Mall in Little Rock. The Commission will review several draft rule changes. Posted by JJT.

The Arkansas Tobacco Settlement Commissiontoday announced awards for its 2010 Child Wellness Intervention Project Grant Program. Governor Mike Beebe, First Lady Ginger Beebe and Annika Sorenstam, the most dominant player in women’s golf, presented the awards during a ceremony at the Arkansas State Capitol. All in all, the Commission awarded $578,704 in grants to 56 [...]

This just in … WASHINGTON—The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) today released the first official public draft of the K-12 standards as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a process being led by governors and chief state school officers in [...]

NOON UPDATE: After questions from legislators at today’s Joint Adequacy Evaluation Oversight Subcommittee meeting today, ADE has agreed to look at pushing testing dates to later in the 2010-2011 school year. So the dates listed below are tentative. The ACTAAP testing calendar for the 2010-2011 school year has been established after consultation with the Arkansas [...]

“What’s up with Arkansas?” asks a Tulsa World editorial in a piece that gives a positive nod to the education reforms — and their results — in Arkansas. It’s easy to get bogged down in the struggle to improve education for our students — it’s an effort that’s far from over, after all — but [...]

Dr. Tom Kimbrell talks about Arkansas educators doing the right things for students and the Race to the Top application in this week’s video message. Link here — http://arkansased.org/about/galleries.html#message — and go to the March 9, 2010, link at the bottom of the page to see the video. Posted by JJT.

The Arkansas State Board of Education renewed two conversion charter schools after presentations by both that illustrated the flexibility and successes conversion charter schools can achieve. Conversion charter schools are schools within a school district that may apply for the same waivers that open enrollments may seek in their charters. Mountain Home High School (MHHS) [...]

The Arkansas State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve the petition to annex the Weiner School Board into the Harrisburg School board during its March meeting. On March 1, the ADE received a petition for voluntary administrative annexation of the Weiner School District into the Harrisburg School District. The Weiner School District is on [...]

The Arkansas State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve the the voluntary administrative annexation of the Delight School District into the Murfreesboro School District. The annexation will form the newly named South Pike County School District, effective July 1. On February 25, the ADE received a petition for Voluntary Administrative Annexation of the Delight [...]

Arkansas will have a new school district beginning in July when the Wickes and Van Cove districts join together in a voluntarily consolidate to form the Cossatot River School District. The State Board of Education voted unanimously to approve the petition to consolidate/ On January 28, 2010, the Department received a Petition for Voluntary Consolidation [...]