Future School of Fort Smith to open inaugural class with 65 students

Future School of Fort Smith will open its doors on Monday, Aug. 22, to an enrollment of 65 students, according to Trish Flanagan, the public charter school’s founder and superintendent.

The school’s maximum capacity is 150, and Flanagan expects there to be growth as the community gets used to something that it’s never seen before in the project-based learning curriculum. Flanagan said word of mouth has been a big factor in getting the enrollment figures to where they are and to even getting the school off the ground.

“We anticipate getting more signed up as word of mouth starts to grow,” Flanagan told Talk Business & Politics on Thursday (Aug. 18).

One misconception that Future School of Fort Smith continues to fight is the idea that it’s a private school, Flanagan said.

“A lot of people still think they have to pay. Because it’s a first-time charter, they’re not sure how to categorize us.”

The process technically began on July 9, 2015, as the first of several public hearings were held attempting to explain what Future School of Fort Smith would be and how it would be an asset to the city. That following November, the Arkansas Board of Education approved the charter. The application for Future School was filed July 28 with the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). On Oct. 14, a state panel approved the application as an open enrollment charter school. But prior to that, Fort Smith Public School Board members grilled Flanagan and charter school supporters during a September 2015 committee meeting.

Most Board members were concerned about the money the district would lose if the charter was approved. Because the charter school is open enrollment, students from any school district in the state may attend. If by year four there are 400 of the 450 students from the Fort Smith School District, the district would see a reduction in state funds of around $2.7 million.

However, the Board voted at its Sept. 28 meeting to endorse the charter.

With charter approval, the school hoped to begin in 2016 with 150 10th grade students. It would then add 150 students and a grade each year until by year three the school would be home to grades 10-12 and 450 students. While enrollment isn’t quite there, the students signed up at Future School of Fort Smith have shown enthusiasm for the project, with Flanagan noting that many who will walk through its doors on Monday as students are working side-by-side with their teachers to plan, organize and ready classrooms.

The students are joined by a principal and a staff of four “core” teachers in the areas of English, math, science, and social studies. Flanagan expects to add more teachers as enrollment builds and Future School begins taking on more partners within the community. So far, the school has agreements with the Fort Smith Museum of History, Howard Elementary, the Sack Lunch Program, and UAFS, among others.

Just one example of the types of project-based learning that Future School of Fort Smith will offer include an English unit built around the city’s downtown murals project (“the Unexpected”). “Students are going to be doing essays and video narratives on the artists,” Flanagan explained. “They will be over there meeting the artists and watching them do all sorts of stuff.”

For the first semester, students will be doing group internships, Flanagan said. In the second semester, they will move into individual internships with one of the participating community partners. Each project will follow Common Core Standards. Funding for the school comes primarily from the ADE.