Article by: Cynthia Howell of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Little Rock School District leaders elaborated Wednesday on the multi-million dollar federal Magnet School Assistance Program grant to the district that was announced earlier this week by the U.S. Department of Education.
The total of the grant -- the single-largest grant awarded in the district's history -- is for $14,245,766, which will go to four schools over the course of five years.
Already, as much as $5.8 million has been received by the district for programs in the works at Dr. Martin Luther King and Carver elementary schools and Dunbar and Horace Mann middle schools.
Each of the campuses has been designated in past years as a magnet school. Magnet schools have specialty programs or themes in addition to the traditional academic programs -- all intended to make the schools attractive to students and their families.
Now, the specialty courses and themes at the four campuses are being changed and strengthened and infused into the full curriculum at each school as the result of the new money.
"Magnet programs help ensure that our students have equitable access to high quality educational experiences, hands-on educational activities and exciting new technology in their buildings," Linda Young, the district's long-time director of grants, said Wednesday at a celebratory news conference outside the district's administration building.
"As we as a nation acknowledge the 70th anniversary of the (1954) landmark Supreme Court decision (Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas),, the district sees the grant as a way to further the goals (of the decision)," she said.
The Brown case declared that requiring the racial segregation of students into separate public schools was unconstitutional.
Superintendent Jermall Wright said Wednesday that the Magnet School Assistance Program grant is an investment in the future of students.
"Grants like these allow us to re-imagine LRSD and create equitable educational opportunities for all students," Wright said. "These funds will allow us to enrich our curriculum, strengthen our programs and provide new resources to help our students thrive academically and socially."
The grant money will enable Carver Magnet Elementary, for example, to enhance its emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts and math or S.T.E.A.M. subjects, as well as on student leadership-building skills.
Dr. Martin Luther King Magnet Academy's leadership and language theme that features instruction in Spanish, American Sign Language and Mandarin Chinese will be further improved with the addition of a grant-funded language laboratory where students can practice new language skills, Young said.
Dunbar Magnet Middle -- which once featured gifted education and international education -- is shifting to a business, leadership and entrepreneurship theme.
Horace Mann Magnet Middle will feature a multi-media arts and digital communications theme.
"Teachers found a program where you can actually reach into a computer, bring out a skeleton with your hand and examine it out here in the air," Young said about resources that will be used at Mann. "What used to be in movies that featured state-of-the-art futuristic visuals is now priced down so you can have it in your schools. You just have to go find it, and we found it."
Duane Clayton, principal at Mann, said podcasting -- to tell the story of the school and its namesake -- and gaming will be elements of the Mann program.
"Our goal is to see students create and innovate," Clayton said, noting that Mann will be helped with its initiatives by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville and Brandon House Cultural and Performing Arts Center in Little Rock.
As a result of the grant money, the district will employ a grant coordinator as well as marketing and curriculum specialists in the weeks to come, to assist the four schools in attracting families to the campuses and carrying out the grant-funded initiatives.
And, each of the four schools will have a grant coordinator and an instructional specialist, Young said.
"We won't just be adding responsibilities to somebody else's job," she said.
"So rather than a stand-alone program, (the themes) will be infused across the curriculum as well as there being stand-alone courses," Young said about the schools, adding that students will better see the connections between what they are learning and their interests in areas such as digital media.
Pupils at Carver can expect field trips to the Arkansas Fine Arts Museum and to plant nurseries, as well as a virtual field trip to community gardens and farms, according to the grant documents submitted by the Little Rock district to the U.S. Department of Education.
Carver's Environmental and Spatial Technology, or EAST, program will be maintained as a project-based learning component of the curriculum. Electives in dance, orchestra, drama, botany and aerospace will be upgraded. STEAM programs will be available outside of the traditional school day, and in the summer, as well.
At Dunbar, elements of the business and entrepreneurship magnet program will include lessons in personal finance, collaboration with community partners on how to start a business and leadership development through community service activities.
Apprenticeships for all eighth-graders will be a feature, incorporating work at the school store, the community garden, and a school bank. A new production studio will make possible podcast development and video productions by students.
Dunbar students will connect their English lessons to science by writing children's books about animal adaptations. Pricing and profit-making on the books will incorporate math lessons, according to the program descriptions for the grant.