LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Officials with the Little Rock School District have been gearing up for the new year as they look to analyze the 2024-25 school year.
However, there's one particular issue that they've been focusing on for quite some time.
"In the last 10 years, we have lost about $25 million in state foundation formula, and since I have been here as superintendent, we have lost about $12 million," said Dr. Wright, the Superintendent for the Little Rock School District.
According to Dr. Wright, those numbers are due to declining enrollment and finance declines.
Analyzing these trends, Dr. Wright explained how he has been preparing to combat the issue through a plan called Optimizing LRSD 2.0.
"We started off a couple of months ago, identifying all of our schools across our district that either did not meet our enrollment targets. Then we also looked at all of our buildings across our campuses that were underutilized," Dr. Wright added.
LRSD defines under-utilized as "a building where they were using 65% or less of the classroom space in their buildings for instruction."
These recollections led to Dr. Wright looking into Brady Elementary— a school that he said is underutilized and underperformed when it comes to targets.
"We identified Brady as a school that we would close mainly because of their physical facilities and their location," he added.
Through this plan of closing Brady Elementary, students will move to one of 6 other elementary schools and the Brady building will serve as the district's parent center.
Here's a look at where students would relocate:
- McDermott will receive 136 students
- Pulaski Heights Elementary will receive 9 students
- Jefferson will receive 10 students
- Forest Park will receive 23 students
- J.A. Fair will receive 15 students
- Stephens will receive 27 students
Another recommendation that Dr. Wright will present includes the consolidation of Carver and Washington.
"The new proposed name for that building will be Carver Washington S.T.E.M Magnet Elementary School. Most folks have been receptive to the idea because combining both schools will finally put them over that enrollment target, and so we won't have any more future conversations about the need to close or consolidate anymore," he said.
Washington currently has about 300 students enrolled but they can accommodate up to 900 and Carver's enrollment is currently at below 200.
By combining the two schools, Dr. Wright says all parties will benefit— and even gain financially.
"We were recently awarded almost $15 million from the U.S. Department of Education to enhance our magnet programs across our district. And so Carver is going to get a substantial amount of that $15 million to finally put money into resources to really make that S.T.E.M. magnet program really come to life," Dr. Wright described.
Additional proposals will include enhancing Dunbar, early childhood programs, and implementing bilingual programs.
Once these recommendations are proposed, board members can either vote or defer it to December.
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