State approves 84 private schools for LEARNS; repeal effort confident

Eighty-four Arkansas private educational providers have been approved by the state Department of Education to accept students qualifying for education freedom accounts through the LEARNS Act. Most schools are faith-based, and about half are based in the Little Rock-North Little Rock area or in Northwest Arkansas.

Meanwhile, the executive director of the voter-initiated referendum attempt to repeal the LEARNS Act says the effort is gaining steam. Steve Grappe said his group expects to turn in enough signatures Monday to potentially qualify outright for the November 2024 ballot or at least qualify for a 30-day “cure period.”

The education freedom accounts (EFAs) were created by the LEARNS Act, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ education reform bill passed by legislators earlier this year. They give families access to roughly $6,600 for the 2023-24 school year, or 90% of the per pupil state funding that would have gone to the public school they attended.

A review by Talk Business & Politics of the 84 schools and their presumed websites found that at least 73 of the 84 private education providers are Christian-based. Of those, 24 are Catholic. The Division of Elementary and Secondary Education provided the list upon request.

Those private providers include large Christian schools including Little Rock Christian Academy, Shiloh Christian School in Springdale, and Episcopal Collegiate and Catholic High School for Boys, both of which are in Little Rock. It also includes schools scattered throughout the state such as Subiaco Academy in Subiaco, Victory Christian School in Camden, and Legacy Academy in Lockesburg.

One school, The Huda Academy in Little Rock, is associated with the Islamic faith.

Of the 84 schools, 26 are in Little Rock, North Little Rock or Sherwood. Another 14 are in Northwest Arkansas, including Community Christian School in Siloam Springs.

The 40 other schools are scattered throughout the state. Eight are in the Fort Smith-Van Buren area, while four are in Saline County. Three are in Searcy, home of Harding University, the state’s largest private Christian university.

Six of the 84 schools specifically target students with special educational needs. One of the six is faith-based. Compass Academy addresses a variety of issues including autism, developmental delays, and emotional and behavioral disorders.

The application of an 85th school, Fayetteville Nature School, is pending. The non-faith-based school says on its website that it “balances academics with physical and mental wellbeing while learning in and with our natural world.” Many of its classes are held outdoors regardless of the weather.

The news comes as the Arkansas Supreme Court is preparing to hear a case initially filed by patrons of the Marvell-Elaine School District. Judge Herbert Wright ruled LEARNS should not have gone into effect until Aug. 1 because legislators failed to vote on its emergency clause separately, as required by the Arkansas Constitution. Tuesday is Aug. 1.

The Supreme Court previously vacated a temporary restraining order imposed by Wright and remanded the case back to him.

Also, a group opposed to LEARNS, Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students, is collecting signatures to place on the November 2024 ballot a referendum repealing the law. Its deadline to submit 54,422 valid signatures is July 31. If it submits that many signatures and 75% or more are valid, it would have a 30-day cure period to collect the remaining amount.

CAPES’ Grappe said the group had collected 34,000 signatures as of Thursday night with call-ins for about 4,000 more. He said the group had collected “probably about 4,000 new signatures” Thursday. He said it “had probably tripled” its number of canvassers in the field.

He expects the count to reach the 40,000s by July 29 and is confident it will reach the 54,422 required signatures, either outright or after the cure period. Volunteers are verifying the signatures, so he expects most to qualify.

He said the group plans to drop off signatures with the Secretary of State’s office at 3 p.m. July 31.

LEARNS would go into effect over a three-year period. No more than 1.5% of the state’s public school students are eligible for education freedom accounts for the 2023-24 school year. For the upcoming school year, that would include first-time kindergarteners, students who in the previous year were enrolled in an “F”-rated school or troubled “Level-5” district, students who in the previous year were enrolled in the Succeed Scholarship Program, students with a disability, homeless students, current or former foster care students, and children of active-duty military personnel.

The pool of eligible students expands to more types of students and increases to 3% of the state’s enrollment in 2024-25. By 2025-26, all public school-eligible students will be eligible for the education freedom accounts.

Allowed expenses include tuition and fees, uniforms, testing, and “any other educational expenses that are deemed to be required by a student’s participating private school,” according to the Department of Education’s website.

Participating private schools are required to meet accreditation requirements and also will be required to administer annually a nationally norm-referenced test approved by the Department of Education.

Laurie Lee, executive director of The Reform Alliance, which supports educational choice, said the education freedom accounts will be “epically transformative” for students. She said homeschoolers in later years will be able to use a portion of the money provided by the state to “purchase” a class from their traditional public school.

“I think that by the time we get to universality in three years that everyone in this state is going to see the power behind what Governor Sanders did with this LEARNS Act. It will open up the doors to educational models and opportunities and innovation like we’ve never seen,” she said.

Lee noted that there are private schools in about 30 counties, but that number will grow as parents have money to pay for their children’s education.

“Think about the opportunities now that are going to come to rural Arkansas when providers can say, ‘Okay, well there’s a hundred kids that live in this part of Arkansas that need a private school. Let’s open one up, because now we know that they’re going to be able to afford it,’” she said.

Editor’s note: Roby Brock contributed to this report.