More than a half million Arkansas kids are back at school for the fall, and districts across the state face different challenges.

For some in rural Arkansas, it means ballooning class sizes and a hunt for more teachers and classroom space.

Jon Laffoon, superintendent of the Farmington School District, said some districts are losing students, but in rural Northwest Arkansas, they have seen an uptick of well over 130 students this year as more families choose to move into his district. Farmington's five public schools now serve more than 2,500 children.

"Our biggest challenge is going up 300 or 400 kids in my three years here," Laffoon explained. "Our biggest challenge is making sure that we have adequate classroom space, and making sure that we are able to plan for the future and plan for that growth."

Laffoon added school districts across the state are seeing the effects of the teacher shortage. They are having difficulty recruiting teachers in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math, which means more students are missing out on those opportunities.

The LEARNS Act passed by the Arkansas Legislature went into effect this month. It includes a variety of provisions, from increased security measures to improving teacher pay, and introducing controversial school vouchers.

Laffoon noted some Arkansans believe it was rushed through, leaving students and educators to face the consequences. But he thinks the bill's focus on literacy and making pre-Kindergarten a priority is a plus.

"I've talked to the commissioner and told them this, they still need to find a way to fund pre-K for our districts, because that's the barrier that's keeping more districts from having pre-K early education," Laffoon emphasized. "When you have pre-K, data shows that you're going to increase school readiness, language and literacy. And so, if we want to really improve literacy, to me, that's the hump we've got to get over, is access to pre-K."

Dennis Copeland, assistant director of the Arkansas Rural Education Association, said his group supports and advocates for public education, with 213 school districts and 15 of the educational service co-ops as members. The group provides $24,000 in scholarships each year to member school districts, including some funding for teacher education.

"We have two vocational scholarships that are $1,000 each for two years, and then, we have two paraprofessional scholarships, $1,000 each for two years," Copeland outlined. "We try to encourage those folks that are there at school that are paraprofessionals to go back and finish up, hopefully get hired there by that school district that they're working for currently."

He added smaller, rural districts are working to "grow their own" teaching staffs, and recruiting more college students to pursue education majors. He noted the minimum starting salary for a teacher in Arkansas is $50,000.


get more stories like this via email

The Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida are filing lawsuits against the deactivation orders issued by State University System Chancellor Raymond Rodrigues and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The groups claim the looming orders come at a time when the conflict in the contested territories of Israel and Palestine are a matter of vital public discourse, depriving them of essential resources.

Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, is part of the legal team representing the students.

"Our client has made a very brave decision to challenge state officials' attempt to restrict student speech, in a case that they and we hope sends a strong message that censorship in our schools is unconsitutional," said Shamsi.

The state's deactivation was based on the groups' alleged connection to a toolkit supporting Hamas' attack on Israel, which violates a Florida law against providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations. However, neither group has a formal relationship with the National Students for Justice in Palestine, which the Chancellor later acknoledged.

According to Shamsi, the groups recognize that colleges are contending with how to manage increased tensions and threats on their campuses while keeping students safe, but pointed out that it doesn't mean they have to abandon students' rights to do so.

"We take the weight and complexities of those issues seriously," she added, "but it is precisely in times of heightened crisis that university leaders must remain steadfast in their commitment to free speech, to open debate and peaceful dissent on campus."

While the Chancellor Rodrigues says they are reviewing legal and deactivation options, a spokesman for the governor's office said it was "reprehensible to see some university administrators, after the fact, creating bureaucratic roadblocks."



get more stories like this via email

Illinois high school seniors have new hurdles to overcome to get to college. High school students are waiting several extra weeks to get their hands on a newly designed Free Application for Student Aid. You might know it better as FAFSA.

The delay in the current process puts students behind when applying for financial aid.

Tabitha Jackson, senior seminar instructor for CICS Longwood High School, works with seniors at the charter school in Chicago. She said FAFSA has always been an Achilles heel, but the delay -- combined with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to repeal affirmative action -- has further exacerbated the process.

"It's so frustrating and it's so hurtful to let a student know, 'Because of who I am, I may not have some additional support or some additional support benefits of being able to go to this school,'" she said. "My question is to my students: 'If affirmative action stops at this level, what's next?'"

Jackson added a lot of students don't want debt, and financial aid helps determine which college they can afford. The 2024-25 FAFSA form is expected to be available by the end of 2023.

The cumbersome conditions coincide with a downward trend for high school seniors who are participating in career and college aid counseling.

Doug Keller, partnership lead with San Francisco-based YouthTruth, said its Class of 2022 Survey underscores troubling findings from respondents.

"We found that there's significant declines among particular student groups and their participating in counseling about how to pay for college -- specifically, among Hispanic or Latinx students, multi-racial and multi-ethnic students and boys," he explained.

Keller said the largest gap is among American Indian, Alaskan and other Indigenous students, with a 14% gap between those who want to go to college and those who expect to attend.


get more stories like this via email

A program giving high school students a taste of college and college credits along the way is celebrating its 33rd year of operation in Washington state.

The Running Start program offers 11th and 12th graders an opportunity to take college courses at the state's 34 community and technical colleges and three of its universities.

Julie Garver, director of policy and academic affairs for the Washington State Council of Presidents, which represents universities, said the program eases the transition to college-level learning.

"By being able to explore those things within high school, which is a safer environment or within those contexts, then students are able not only to get the confidence but to get those skills," Garver outlined. "They are not surprised and learning that transition while they're also taking college courses when they're at one of our campuses."

More than 27,000 high school students were enrolled in Running Start at community and technical colleges in the past academic year.

Jamie Traugott, director of dual credit and strategic enrollment initiatives for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, said students in the program report feeling better prepared for the next step in their academic careers.

"The confidence of being able to complete a college-level class, but then really to be like, 'OK, I did this. What else can I get involved with?'" Traugott noted. "Or, 'Maybe, I thought I would go to a community technical college, but I never considered that I could also transfer to a four-year institution.'"

Traugott added the program has been helpful for the students who are able to access it but there is still more work to do to close equity gaps in enrollment.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.


get more stories like this via email