If You’re Wondering About Haas Hall Academy (Arkansas), Read This Post.
The following post is written by Elizabeth Lyon-Ballay, who identifies herself as a “former professional violinist and public charter school teacher” and “current stay-at-home mom and agitator for change.”
Elizabeth Lyon-Ballay
Lyon-Ballay has been exercising her right to view public records via Arkansas’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Her desire to understand education in Arkansas stems from her “brief, tragic stint as a teacher in an open-enrollment charter school.” In this January 02, 2019, post, she offers extensive information gleaned from public records requests related to Haas Hall Academy, a Fayetteville, Arkansas, charter school with a student body notably lacking in special education students and English language learners, and including a mere 1% of black students.
Some excerpts from Layon-Ballay’s section about what she has “learned so far” from her Haas Hall Academy FOIA requests:
- Haas Hall does not require all of their employees (who work daily with public schoolchildren) to have employment contracts or undergo background checks — even though the Arkansas Department of Education clearly requires it even for charter school staff.
- Haas Hall doesn’t keep minutes from school board meetings that show a record of who is on the school board, which board members were present at each meeting, who was absent from each meeting, and what the vote on each agenda item was. That’s required by state law, too, since school board meetings are supposed to be the public’s opportunity to participate in school governance.
- Haas Hall isn’t a sustainable public school. It’s a subsidized Potemkin village. Haas Hall has a huge slush fund in the form of a private foundation, so it doesn’t have to budget money to pay for “occupancy” expenses (its own buildings,) most of its advertising campaigns, or to reimburse its faculty/staff for their travel and lodging when they CONTINUE READING:
If You’re Wondering About Haas Hall Academy (Arkansas), Read This Post. | deutsch29
