Hearing on Open-Enrollment Amendment Request: LRSD vs. eStem Public Charter
Made: March 31, 2016
As I stood at the steps of the Arch Ford Education building, where the hearing for eStem’s request to expand would be held, I said and thought to myself,”Jones what have you gotten into this time?” When thinking about expanding or how schools expand, there are a lot of marks to be checked before making a final decision. In this case, eStem’s first appearance to request an expansion was on February 19, 2016.
During this meeting, a six-to-one vote made it clear that the request was approved by the panel. Though, On March 10, 2016, the State Board of Education vote to review the decision of the Charter Authorizing Panel. So, March 31, today, became the final decision of whether the request of the expansion would be approved or not. It was a thrilling day indeed.
The event would begin at 5;00 p.m. Two schools wanted similar actions for their schools and were there to defend in what they believed. As the first school began their hearing, I didn’t know why it took so long to come to a vote. Within waiting for eStem’s hearing, parents, faculty, teachers, students, and facilitators had waited for 5 hrs before entering.
With all this in mind, I didn’t even know why I was there. I mean, expansion is great and all but why the whole fuss right? I didn’t understand the level of importance until I sat and heard what the opposition was. The LRSD school district opposed that eStem Public Charter was taking the brightest students from their district and putting them in their school. Now, with that said, I was not a B+ student when I got into eStem. In fact, I was in the LRSD school district and I never even heard of eStem in my life until 9th grade when I had to switch,
My grades in the LRSD school district was in the range between 2.1–2.5 gpa. When I switched to eStem, I began to increase slowly though, I didn’t notice until I went to the hearing today. As I started my junior year, off campus lunch was allowed for juniors if they had a 3.0 or higher gpa. I found out that I was in that group ranging in the 3.0–3.2 gpa, as a junior. Now thinking of the opposition, I would think of it as instead of getting the packaged present, eStem has the materials to make the packaged present in the end. eStem builds the lesser people and changes them into something greater even though some students haven’t seen that yet,
Before the opposition gave their say, though, John Bacon would present the reasons for expansion on behalf of the eStem community.. John Bacon did present what the panel wanted but also had significant reasons that helped in empowering student’s voices. His main points were the eStem impact, records of success, innovative approaches/impacting education at a larger scale, noble impact, and lastly, the outcomes of all this.
These main points revealed interesting statistics, for example, 45% in the eStem high school are african american, 43% are white, 6% are hispanic, and 6% are other. These stats were at relation to the city of little rock’s demographic diversity. Interesting enough, eStem has made its name known in serving the city of little rock through different programs and making sure the students are “college ready, world ready” motto. eStem students are students who have a desire to learn.
Even though, this school is a STEM school, many of the opportunities to serve is all around eStem. Noble Impact is a prime example of serving in the community. Noble Impact has made its name known with the help of eStem, giving them the opportunity to let students build their Innovate 2 Educate event. This allowed students to help the adults, the ones who still are making the decisions for students, in seeing the challenges of what we face in high school.
With all this being said, it was almost time to vote in on if eStem would be able to expand. Though, one public remark was fascinating. An Alumni, Jackson Fitzgibbon, who graduated in eStem made a very good point.
“Will eStem still be life changing if it can change more lives?”
One point in this would be if eStem has the abilities to have change in the school, then why shouldn’t they be able to change the lives who are less fortunate or the ones who are in high poverty.
Also, students from the middle school were able to share their opinions, something that I believe should be given because, only the consumers know the truths behind your product. Roman Kresse and Sydney Massey gave their opinions and believed that eStem has given the materials to help them grow and flourish in who they want to become; Noble giving them time to build their portfolios/credibility.
Teachers also gave part in sharing what they believed in both in favor of the expansion and the ones who opposed the expansion. I smiled while this was happening because, it was 11:42 when we were closing. At 11:46, the time to vote began and the votes were 2 who opposed to 5 who favored the expansion. It was an interesting evening and hope to follow in on what happens next.