Rerun: Consolidate, Close, Construct

In light of the Little Rock School District's 14 Reform Strategies to fix its middle schools, I'm rerunning a post I made last year regarding middle schools.

Note that one of the two zones which grew in population over the past ten years (4) has no middle school. In fact, there is no middle school west of I-430.

Three of the seven middle schools are located in zones which lost population (1 and 2), two are in a zone which stayed flat (3), and two are in a zone which gained population (7).

Lest anyone wonder why West Little Rock parents are fleeing the district in droves when their children transition from elementary to middle schools, it's because the district has demonstrated, by its inaction, that it does not value neighborhood middle schools where its population is growing.

As their redrawn zones are pushed from the east and squeezed up against the western border, board member Adams (4), Secretary Armstrong (6), and President Carreiro (5) should be moving heaven and earth to find that fourth vote to build a new middle school to better serve their constituencies.

Consolidate, Close, Construct

A new West Little Rock middle school is just one piece of a larger goal to close, consolidate and construct schools and facilities to equitably serve the population. Consider what decades of apathetic or deliberate inattention have wrought:

1) All seven Little Rock School District middle schools are within 3.6 miles of another middle school.

2) Five of seven middle schools (Pulaski Heights, Forest Heights, Henderson, Dunbar and Mann) are within 7.8 miles of each other.

3) Two middle schools - Pulaski Heights and Forest Heights are only 1.6 miles from each other, while Dunn and Mann are only 2.1 miles apart.

4) Three board members have two middle schools in their zones (Johnson, Zone 1 - Mann, Dunbar; Fox, Zone 3 - Forest Heights, Pulaski Heights; and Curry, Zone 7 - Mablevale, Cloverdale).

5) One board member has one middle school in his zone (Nellums, Zone 2 - Henderson).

6) Three board members have zero middle schools in their zones (Adams, Zone 4; Carreiro, Zone 5; Armstrong, Zone 6).

7) Current middle schools extend from: North - Forest Heights (5901 Evergreen), South - Cloverdale (6300 Hinkson),  East - Mann (1000 East Roosevelt), West - Henderson (401 Barrow) and Southwest - Mablevale (10811 Mablevale), with Pulaski Heights (401 North Pine) in Hillcrest and Dunbar (1100 Wright Avenue) in Central.

8) Of the seven middle schools, three are magnets - Mablevale, Mann and Henderson, one is a charter - Cloverdale, and two are zoned enrollment - Pulaski Heights and Forest Heights.

9) Roberts Elementary was the first Little Rock School District school to be built west of I-430 since 1978 (33 years).

10) There are 32 elementary schools in the Little Rock School District and five high schools.