Joint Education: Oct. 6, 2025

Jacob Oliva [Missing stream]…Friday. We just weren’t able to get the district state chair. And maybe that’s a conversation as we move forward and look at the future. How do you help those districts because they obviously needed to get that project done. 

Representative Stephen Meeks Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Walker, you’re recognized for a question.

School partnership facility funding

Representative Steven Walker Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you guys for being here today. So on the school district partnership funding, does that cover like the roof replacements for our school districts too? 

Jacob Oliva It can. And I think that’s where you get into that definition of the warm, safe and dry. It may not cover like maintenance of a roof, like maybe they’re just patching some holes. But when you get into like replacing an entire school roof because it’s thirty or forty years old or maybe their insurance requires it. Sometimes you see that as well. They can apply for that project because it’s not considered maintenance. It would be a renovation to help keep warm, safe and dry. 

Representative Steven Walker Okay, great. So that’s what my– I have a few questions regarding that. And I just wanted to make sure I was on topic. So what does that process look like for a school to apply for it and be approved as being able to apply for it? I just trying to figure out what that process would look like. 

Jacob Oliva Yeah. Well, part of the request is they work with our agency and submit that request and there’s some conditions and some factors and there’s actually a number where it says it has to be over 65 percent of the criteria met to be eligible. And, Greg, I don’t know if you want to speak more about kind of that rubric process, but it’s pretty established. 

Greg Rogers Yeah, we would look at the facility’s conditional index and see if it was at 65 percent  and end of life. Also we would look at under Operations Hero, which is what Secretary talked about earlier with the maintenance system. Have they been trying to do maintenance on the roof? Has it been taken care of, so to speak? If it hasn’t been taken care of, then we’d have a different conversation about why hasn’t it been there? What are the different factors that led to this roof needing to be replaced? 

So all those conversations go in there to determine if it would be something eligible for the partnership program. But I think what he said on that before is that we try to assist the districts in making sure they are doing that preventative maintenance before they just come through needing an entire roof replacement. Where, did they just let the roof fall apart before? Or was it something that’s just at end of lifetime to replace that roof? So those are the questions that we have to ask. 

Representative Steven Walker So basically, like on slide seventeen where you talk about the work order creation and closure, so if they don’t submit– we’ll say, tickets– if they don’t submit a certain amount of tickets, then they’re asked to patch or whatever a roof that may not be repairable?

Greg Rogers Not necessarily, but that would be one of the things that we’d come back and ask ’em was that why didn’t you ever submit any tickets or any maintenance into the Operations Hero website? What’s going on with that? If they had something outside of that or if there was something that happened recently quickly that they just weren’t able to, that’s the conversations that our agency would have back and forth with that school district to make sure that there was some kind of maintenance going on there before it happened. But it wouldn’t necessarily just have to rely on those tickets. We’d have a conversation with that district. 

Jacob Oliva And all I’ll say, there’s actually been some circumstances where there may be hail damage that wasn’t planned on that got factored into the life of the roof because, even though they may have had some insurance or sometimes there’s been tornado damage, they may have to do an insurance claim. 

But they were already on the list to get the roof redone. Do we want to spend time repairing it? Do we want to go back and just say, Can we expedite this process? Let’s just do the replacement now, even though that was going to be done two years ago, because that would make more sense. So I think to that question, there’s a lot of other factors that get put into that as well. 

Representative Steven Walker Okay. I’ll get back in the queue. I know there’s other questions. Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Mayberry, you’re recognized for a question. 

Representative Julie Mayberry Thank you. And over here, I just wanted to just publicly thank again Tim Kane for his work. Back in 2019, we passed a bill, the ADA compliance committee, and this was a group that worked to make sure that we are educating our school districts. 

And that in, let’s see, February 1 of 2024, that each school district had to turn into their master plan an ADA kind of checklist of things that they are going to fix. We recognize that this needs to be done. And so I’m just kind of following up on all that because that was, I guess, due February 1 of 2024. And I know it’s in, just because you’ve said, this is going to be fixed, doesn’t mean it gets fixed right away. 

If you could give some type of update and how if there’s someone who wants to see in their own school district what things were determined by that person at the school district that needs to be fixed, how they can stay on top of that person to make sure that it does get fixed. Does that make sense? 

Tim Cain Well, Representative Mayberry, that’s a good question. We took all this from the master plan, like you said, last year, two years ago coming up, and there was a lot of them that did have several items that needed to be updated. So we have that in the master plan. And as they submit in 2026, we hope to see some progress there. So our folks will be able to follow up on those. 

And as you know, some of them are high priority and some of them are lower priority and dealing with cost and feasibility and all those things. But I thought overall it was successful. I mean, we got districts submitting kind of a punch list of items that they need to look at and address. 

Representative Julie Mayberry So is that punch list available? Can someone request for their school district? How can we see what that is? 

Tim Cain Yes, ma’am. The master plan is, that’s public public record.

Representative Julie Mayberry But I guess is it set aside to be very clear this is ADA compliance? Or is it just kind of in there with everything else? 

Tim Cain No, ma’am. There’s a separate tab just for the ADA section. 

Representative Julie Mayberry Okay. So someone could go to their school district and find that. But maybe some dollars to help fix some of those things would not be available until 2026 if they– just kind of helped me out. 

Tim Cain Well, it depends on what it is, first of all, to see if it’s eligible for partnership projects. Some of those items won’t be. But the ones that are, I mean they could do a partnership project for. 

Representative Julie Mayberry Okay. Do you know of any school district that has sort of taken that punch list and has actually fixed those things? Do we know of that? Because I think that was the hope that if we bring it to their attention, that it needs to be fixed, because we’re not talking about brand new buildings.

 Brand new buildings usually are always ADA compliant, they have to follow certain rules. We’re talking about buildings that were probably built before 2004. And we want to make sure that they’re brought up into compliance so that people do have access to the bathroom, so that they do have access into the building that’s an appropriate ramp and all that. Do you know of a school district that has made some of those changes based on that? I’m just curious. 

Tim Cain I would have to go and look, representative, to be sure. But I know that in 2026, we’ll follow up and see how much progress they’ve made when they do their master plan. And we’ll know how much further down the road they’ve gotten. 

Representative Julie Mayberry Thank you. And thank you for working with me. I know that many people probably think that it’s not a very big deal. But it is. Everybody needs the bathroom. 

Tim Cain Yes.

Representative Julie Mayberry And there’s still bathrooms that are not accessible. So thank you. 

Tim Cain Yes, ma’am. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Duke, you’re recognized for a question. 

Representative Hope Duke Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being here today and for your presentation. My question goes back to when you were talking about the partnership funding and the districts who are not able to come up with the funds on their side of it. I would like to see that list, if you could send that out to the members. I would appreciate it. But I would also like to know, logic’s dictating to me that they went for a millage increase, likely, and their voters voted it down. 

And so that, generally, the people of that district have a better pulse on what a school needs than we do down here in Little Rock often. So I guess I’m curious, when you get the information that they didn’t get the partnership funding, is it categorized of like, okay, they failed the millage increase failed, which obviously sends a message from the voters one way or the other, which I think is important. 

So is that categorized and is that taken, I think, into consideration? I mean, do you use that information when you’re looking at some of this stuff in the future? Because that’s sending a message, I think, at least in my experience. Sometimes districts bite off more than they can chew, and they want maybe more than what they need. And their voters are saying, No, you don’t need that much. And so you can get by with less bells and whistles than what you are asking us for. 

And so my question, and also along with wanting to have that information, knowing if that information is compiled as far as the millage went down. And then also, do you guys use that as future information when you’re looking at some of these projects to know are they– I think we can all think of facilities that are quite extravagant. I mean, my son played JUCO and college basketball, and there’s many facilities in our state– and God bless them if their voters pay for it, right– but high school facilities are way nicer than they were. 

And so if the voters say no, and I think I know this has happened, what do you guys do with that information? Does that like send off little alarm bells? Because people are sending messages that they’re tired of their taxes, right? And so are we receiving that message? And do we have a standard when we’re looking at this that they’re not building the Taj Mahal, when they are coming and asking for partnership funding, that they’re building what they need, not what they want. 

Jacob Oliva Sure. Great question. First, follow up question, if I could ask really quick. And we can get you the list of districts that have rescinded project requests. How far back do you want us to go? Like how many years? I just want to make sure we get you what you’re looking for. 

Representative Hope Duke Well, that’s a really good question. Let’s go back three years. 

Jacob Oliva Easy. Yeah, we can definitely do that. 

Representative Hope Duke And maybe I should change. I may have other members go, No, you need to go back further than that. But we’ll go back for three years. 

Jacob Oliva I was thinking like five to ten or something. 

Representative Hope Duke Well then great, go for it. 

Jacob Oliva But I just want to make sure I didn’t– if you wanted like the last 50 years, I was like–. 

Representative Hope Duke I don’t want fifty years. 

Jacob Oliva I don’t want to have to archive some stuff like. Like I just want to make sure we get what– Okay. 

Representative Hope Duke I’m good with yours. 

Jacob Oliva So we’ll look to see if we can do about five to ten years. And then the second part of that question is what happens, right? Like if a referendum fails, do we keep track of that information? Yes. Do we keep track of millage rates as they change? Absolutely. Oftentimes, just because a referendum failed doesn’t mean they automatically come off the list, right? 

So the district may go back to the voters with a different proposal. And we have seen that a lot of times where a community will vote for a different millage request than what was originally sent, because maybe they learned something throughout that process as well. So I think it’s an interesting question because the concept, are you building what you need versus what you want, right? And that’s why when we look at it, we try to look at that formula as far as, are you growing, is it an age facility, is it not safe, is it not warm, is it not dry? 

Those are the factors we look at. And it’s for educational space. So I don’t know if it’s always been like that. I’ll have to ask the historians. I think a lot of times when you look at like gyms and athletic complexes, maybe that qualified one time in the past. I don’t know. But that’s not an eligible expense. So this is for educational spaces for this request. So if a district wanted to fund something extravagant like that, they would have to do that. It wouldn’t be part of the partnership project. Greg, you may– 

Representative Hope Duke Well, but  if you get the partnership money here, obviously it frees you up more money over here, right? So it gives you the ability to build maybe more there. But sometimes if you’re smart, right, you combine the two. And I’m not saying just– in a day when we have a lot of complaints about taxes, and I think they’re fair, particularly property taxes. 

I think it’s questions that we need to kind of dig a little bit into and understand what the impact is coming back when the community says no, we don’t want the millage increase. We don’t feel strongly enough about this particular entity. And to your point, I do think that they sometimes revise and come back with a leaner, meaner proposal. I do, if I may, have one other question. 

On these HVACs and all of those pieces, when they were applying for those, if my memory serves me correctly, a lot of those types of upgrades were covered facilities. They could use those with some of their ARPA money and all that money. So I was a little surprised so many of those requests when I would have thought a lot of those would have met with that money. Can you speak to that a little bit? 

Jacob Oliva So I think the answer to your question is, could you have used ARPRA money to upgrade facilities as far as air filters, social distancing? Absolutely. But our kids didn’t have access to school and couldn’t learn how to read and do math. So we would always prioritize districts to use those ARPA flexible dollars to not upgrade facilities but to put teachers in front of students. And I hope as a state as we navigated through that that that was our priority as well. 

Representative Hope Duke Well, it was our priority. So like, right, we opened up pretty quickly compared to lots of other states. And so we were. But I also know that was part of the money piece. So is there some type of record as far as how they spent that money? 

Jacob Oliva Oh yeah. 

Representative Hope Duke Did they– because there was lots of choices they could make with that money. And so did they make the best use of that money before they’re coming here and asking for this money now, too? I guess that’s my question. Do we know that? 

Jacob Oliva Yes. And we actually even have an ESSER tracker that we can send you the link to that shows you what every district spent all of their federal dollars on. So if they had upgraded their facilities using their COVID funds, they wouldn’t qualify to upgrade their facilities with these funds because they wouldn’t meet the threshold for needing an update. It would be too new. 

Representative Hope Duke Well, my question more is, what did they use that money for versus the HVAC? Because in that time period there was a lot of emphasis as well as we’ve got to make sure our schools are safe for the kids to be in. And we’ve got to upgrade our HVACs because we’re not sure that they’re going to have the right quality of air and all the stuff that was going on with that. 

So I’m curious, the schools that did not upgrade their HVACs at that time, what were they using that money for? Do you understand what I’m asking for versus why they’re asking for the HVAC now? What did they use it for in that time period as opposed to the HVAC? What did they deem as a higher priority? And it may well be the staffing and those different things. I’m just curious,  what does the data say on that? 

Jacob Oliva Yeah. And we could go through and maybe pull out a snapshot of what the report says, but I think what you’d find is extra staffing, extra bus routes, online learning platforms, hopefully summer programs, high impact tutoring. But we can do it. It’s hard to make a generalization because every district took a different approach. 

And even some of the districts that may have started with doing, like maybe they were trying to get more buses to add more rides to have more distancing or students or upgrading their chiller plants. The wait time, the lead time and the construction costs during that time went up really quick. So they may have been put on, well, we’re going to upgrade our chiller plant. But by the time we get it, like they’re saying there was three year turnaround times like from day one to order parts, that those dollars had to be obligated. 

And they may have had to pivot from what they originally started with that plan year one because they weren’t going to be able to do the project to get it obligated and closed out before those dollars sunset and had to reprioritize other initiatives, which is where I think you’re going to see the staffing, the sanitation equipment and those kinds of things. 

Representative Hope Duke So can you get us some information on that? 

Jacob Oliva Be happy to. 

Representative Hope Duke Appreciate it. Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Allen, you’re recognized for a question. 

Representative Fred Allen Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here today. Just a few minutes ago you had a list of random inspections. And my question to you, does those random inspections apply to private and charter schools too? 

Greg Rogers Yes. They would have to. They’re also in Operations Hero and they cannot get their charter school facilities funding without having those inspections done as well. 

Representative Fred Allen Okay. Well, thank you so much. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Cozart, you’re recognized.

Representative Bruce Cozart Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just got a couple of questions. I’d like to stay on the facilities for just a minute. I know a while back, we were talking about people that would qualify for facility for an addition or building for what they could. And especially during COVID time, materials went so sky high, and then they couldn’t get the partnership money they needed. 

I think we’ve kind of hit those points here today. Where do they fall when they have to turn that back? Do they go off the record and have to start all new and applying when they get a chance to try to do this again? They do not hold any position at all, right? Okay. That’s all. If you shake your head and say, yes, they fall off, I agree. 

Greg Rogers Correct. 

Representative Bruce Cozart That’s what we always did before. 

Greg Rogers Correct. 

School security funding

Representative Bruce Cozart All right. Then my next question is, let’s go back to security a little bit. We talked about security a while ago. How much does the department put out to the schools each year for security? How much money do we send them? And I’m just saying in general. 

Jacob Oliva I just want to clarify, like to help with the hardening of facilities when you’re speaking security? Or are you talking about– security’s pretty broad– I want to make sure I answer your question right. 

Representative Bruce Cozart Well, I’m asking a broad question. How much do we, in general, spend out to the schools? And the schools, that could be used for their buildings or for whatever they deem necessary. We’re not paying for SROs or anything like that? But how much do we send out to the schools in general every year? 

Jacob Oliva So I may need Greg to correct me because I get my years confused. But the previous two school years we had a categorical appropriation supported by the legislature. I want to say it was around $50 million each year that we went through specifically for hardening and threat mitigation. I think when you look at the day-to-day operations of a school, I think that’s where they have their foundation funding to look at staffing. 

Because it could be to add school resource officers, maybe they want to add school counselors, maybe they have deans, behavior interventionists. There’s a wide variety of ways that schools would get money. But when I’m thinking about a state appropriation, I think to answer your question is probably about that $50 million categorical because they have flexibility even with some of their federal grants like Title Four Part A, that they could help support a well-rounded education that’s part of school safety. So there’s a lot of flexibility. 

Representative Bruce Cozart Yeah. And I agree. I thought that was what it was. Are we looking at doing anything different to upgrade security for schools in a way to help them in a better way through the  department or through the state that you know about? 

Jacob Oliva Yeah. You know, when you talk about kind of those best practices, right, that you want to see every campus adopt, right, I think we have some campuses that may be further along than others. And it’s interesting when you get into some community, especially like with old schools in smaller communities and some of the challenges that they face, right? Is there ever enough money to really get them everything they need? 

Like I’ve been on school campuses that have a road that go right through the middle of a high school and during the bells when they change classes, they have people stand at each end of the road with the roads closed while kids are walking back and forth. And it’s just an open campus. And I mean, those campuses that were designed in the 50s, 60s and 70s really had that mindset that it was part of a community. 

And if you’re looking at fencing around a hundred acres because of an open campus in design, those challenges are a lot different than maybe a school that was built four years ago that really thought about single point of access and really look at signage and part of their construction budget included cameras and weapons detection systems and panic buttons and a lot of that gets factored in. 

And I think as we plan new facilities, and even like some of the requirements around safety with LEARNS, is when schools are planning and submitting blueprints, they have to get, and I forget the institution that signs it off, but– what’s it called– CJI. CJI looks at those plans to make sure that somebody’s making recommendations or putting that lens around safety. 

I do think a lot of our older campuses and our districts have been really creative on how they’re adding fencing and single point of access. And I don’t want to call out districts specifically by name because when you’re talking about safety, we want to make sure we keep those plans safe. 

Representative Bruce Cozart Yeah. Well I’ve always had a very deep interest in school safety. And of course I don’t have personal kids there, but I do have grandkids there. And I think everybody in this room knows someone that’s in a school, and we always care for our kids. And as we’ve watched across our nation, it’s not getting any better. But we need to make ours a lot safer than we have now and I think we’ve made some good steps. Mr. Secretary, I think we’ve got some more steps to go. 

Jacob Oliva I agree. And that’s why we also do our drills, right? Whether it’s severe weather, fire, active shooter, it’s an important part of our DNA. Because as you go through that experience, you may uncover things that you haven’t thought of. 

One of the the strategies that we’re implementing this school year we’ve been doing kind of– because you have that hardening threat mitigation, right, and then you have kind of that ongoing day-to-day procedures is working, now that every school district has an identified school safety specialist, we’ve tasked our school safety team to work like with a co-op in a region where we bring all– let’s say there’s 15 school safety specialists together for a training to ask those questions. 

And then we all go to a school and walk a campus and everybody walks around with a different set of eyes and say, What would you make as a recommendation for that school? So one, it would make good recommendations to that school, but then everybody else can hear what everybody else is thinking about, what can we do to keep them safer. 

Representative Bruce Cozart Thank you. I agree a hundred percent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Beck, you’re recognized for a question. 

Representative Rick Beck Thank you, Mr. Chair. So my question was, and I might have misunderstood, but earlier on you were saying, okay, you’re looking at systems to make sure that they’re properly maintained, and you kind of hung that as, would that be part of the approval process for replacing that equipment? 

Greg Rogers Correct. One of the things we’d look at was, in the Operations Hero, where as Representative Walker was talking about earlier, were there tickets that we could go back and look at and see that that district was doing regular maintenance on that HVAC? Were they doing a roof inspection? What were they doing? Were there tickets in there showing that, that there was some kind of preventative maintenance or maintenance being done on that HVAC or whatever they’re requesting to be replaced? 

That’s just the first threshold. Like I said, there’s other circumstances we’d look at that and say, you know, we didn’t see any maintenance on this, tell us a bit more why you all of a sudden need this to happen now. And then it could be something like a storm come through or something happened then, or it could be whatever factors were going into it. Then outside of the ticket system, the Operations Hero, if there’s still a need for that replacement of HVAC, then they could qualify for partnership funding. 

Representative Rick Beck So my question is– appreciate that. My question is this. So if a school district was deemed just not to be doing, we’ll use an HVA system. So you have a major HVA system, it’s not being properly maintained. And that could have been like a previous administration or something like that going on. 

Well, now the school’s kind of in, they’re in a situation here where this thing wasn’t maintained and now it’s got to be replaced and I don’t have funds available to help me replace that. Is there some type of a system where we somehow could reset that or something?

Greg Rogers Yeah. Yes. I mean if the superintendent came and said the last guy wasn’t maintaining it, I got this mess on my hand, I need to get it fixed, we would qualify them for partnership funding as long as they had their wealth index share, whatever that was, they would qualify. 

Representative Rick Beck Okay, thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Garner, you’re recognized for a question?

Representative Denise Garner Thank you. Garner. No worries. Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m down at this end. I just wanted to clarify your answer from Representative Allen. He asked about charters and private schools. We don’t have anything to do with safety for private schools or parochial schools.

Greg Rogers Correct. No, it was just charter schools. 

Representative Denise Garner We don’t have the ability to–. 

Greg Rogers Correct. 

Representative Denise Garner Okay, thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Rye, you’re recognized.

Representative Johnny Rye Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, let me ask you this. Let’s just say it’s $8,000 per student for your maintenance and operation of 20-5 mills. So in other words, if you have a poor school that’s actually, coming up with $2,500 of the $8,000 that’s to be spent on average, is that same percentage used on the construction cost? 

Greg Rogers I don’t know if I’m following your question right. So I’ll try, and if I get it wrong, just tell me I got it wrong. That’s what the wealth index comes in for. So for the poorest, the poor school districts that do qualify for partnership, their wealth index would be higher, which means that they wouldn’t have to come up with as much capital to get their financial part for the partnership program. The richer the school district, the more they have to bring in for that project. And that’s based off the wealth index that we do calculate on for each school district. 

Representative Johnny Rye Appreciate you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me in. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Walker, you’re recognized.

Representative Steven Walker So I appreciate y’all’s answer from earlier. I’ll be able to wrap it up pretty quick based off of it. So I’ve been hearing grumbling around the state, and that was the reason for a lot of my questions that, outside of a natural disaster, it only depends by how many tickets that are submitted. 

If you submitted zero tickets, there was no other way around it. And that is a disservice to small schools if that was true, because a lot of times a superintendent in a small school is also the facilitator manager. And if they leave, you have somebody new coming in. There wasn’t training going on around the state that I could find that was showing new people coming in that the ticket system was the only way to do it. 

So it makes me feel better knowing that there is other methods out there than just the ticket system. Cause I think if one of your facilitator inspectors or whatever, facility inspectors come out and deem that it is not replaceable, that should be qualified. And so anyway, I just, I feel better knowing it’s not just a ticket system also outside of a natural disaster. 

But I would like a list, if it’s possible, of the schools that have been funded for the last three years that have been approved for a roof replacement that did not send any tickets in and what that approval was for– or not for– but the reason that they didn’t submit a ticket. What avenue did you take to accept it for other reasons? Excluding a natural disaster. I know that’s a different pot. That’s a whole different ballpark. 

I’m just wanting to know for the facilities that whether it was the end of life or whatever, it was unreparable. Not because of a natural disaster. I just want to know a list of schools that did not send any tickets in that was still approved. I thank you. I appreciate it. 

Representative Keith Brooks Seeing no additional questions from members, thank you, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Kane, and Secretary Oliva. We will move now to item E on the agenda. I believe that Stacy Smith is also going to join you at the table to discuss teacher retention and recruitment. 

Jacob Oliva Chairs, if it’s okay, I’d like to ask Dr. Brandie Benton to join me because Stacey Smith is not available at this time. 

Representative Keith Brooks That would be okay, yes sir.  Would please just introduce yourself for the record and you are recognized. 

Brandie Benton Brandie Benton. I’m the Assistant Commissioner of Educator Effectiveness and Licensure. 

Teacher recruitment and retention

Jacob Oliva So what we’d like to do today for the members is just kind of give an overview on where we are with recruitment, retention and recognition of educators and how that looks across the state. And what I’ll do is just, if it’s okay with the chair, just kind of give an overview like a state of the state and then talk specifically around each of these buckets. And I think it’ll help open up for a good dialogue. 

Representative Keith Brooks Yes, sir. Go ahead.

Jacob Oliva So one of the first questions we always get is how many licensed teachers do we have across the state of Arkansas? And here you can see these are probably the most licenses that we have. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but you can kind of see in descending order where we see the majority of the folks across the state that are licensed. 

There’s a lot of educators that are in more than one bucket because you can have more than one license, right? You might be certified as a building administrator, but also as an elementary education teacher. So it’s not that you just add all these numbers up to see how many licensed educators we have in the state, but note that multiple people have multiple different licenses.

But all in all, currently in the state we have about 42,000 teachers and administrators that carry some kind of license with the Department of Education. And about 34,000 of those active licenses are teachers. And it’s also, I think, important to remember, while some educators may have additional licenses, there are a lot of educators that have a license, but they may not be working, or they may even be in another state that applied for a license and or maybe they moved and they still kept their license active with Arkansas because maybe they’re going to move back one day. 

So when you’re kind of aggregating that entire bucket, it’s kind of an interesting snapshot on a way to look at it. But one of the things that we do publish each and every year based on licensure needs is a critical shortage list or state subject shortage list by license. 

And when you look at what’s considered high need, that means annually we’re going to need to replace about 20 percent or more of the teachers in those identified subject areas each year. So you can see in the identified area, the three highest areas. And I think anybody that works in a school will tell you they do have a challenge in attracting secondary science teachers, foreign language teachers and secondary math teachers. So those tend to be a high priority for us that we want to see how we come up with some strategies to reduce those numbers. 

When we talk about licenses, one of the things that we did with the support of the legislature last session is implement a strategy where we put every educator on a teacher licensing plan or an additional licensing plan because we believe that our students should have access to qualified educators. Across the state, you can see different challenges in different parts of the region. 

But you can see the school districts that are high need are kind of in that, I’ll say salmon shaded color, maybe pinkish color, reddish color on my computer. And then gold is moderate. And in the white, non-shaded areas, it’s considered adequate. So you can see in those high need area that they need access to more certified teachers. Meaning in those red areas, about 20% of the teachers annually are going to need to be replaced. 

And when we think about a teacher licensure plan, that is typically like someone that may come to the classroom on a non-traditional route that doesn’t qualify for a license. We work individually with that student, that educator and put them on a pathway to get to licensers. The ALP, the additional licensure plan, means that they have a license, but they may be teaching out of area. So we want to help get them certified. I think you see a lot of, especially in our secondary schools, where a teacher may be asked to teach both math and science. They may be licensed in math but need to do some additional work to get licensed in science as well. 

So when we look at where our teachers come from, how do we get the best of the best? And these committees have heard me present before that the number one indicator for student success is the teachers we put in front of those classrooms, which is why we want to continually invest in teacher quality. We know that teachers come to us from different pathways. 

And oftentimes we say about half of the teachers come from a traditional pathway, half of our teachers come from an alternative path. So you can see here, and this chart goes back to 2013, that the number of educators that come to classrooms has increased over the last decade or so to where it’s almost 40% and about 60% in a traditional class or traditional path. I don’t think this is unique to Arkansas. I think you’re going to find that this is pretty much standard across the United States that a lot of people may be career switchers, right? 

They’ve given a lifetime to one career and always had a passion to be in a classroom and may come to us through an alternative path, which is wonderful because those educators bring their life experiences that they can share with our students each and every single day. So, how do we kind of build that pipeline, maybe whether it’s a traditional route or that alternative route? There’s a couple of programs that we’ve invested in as a state that I want to highlight and share. 

And one of the things that’s starting to really gain momentum for educators on that traditional license path is the Arkansas Teacher Academy Scholarship, which was established in LEARNS. And this is a great program because anybody graduating, say, from high school and wants to go to college to become a teacher and commits to teaching back in Arkansas, basically every year that you earn this scholarship, if you commit to teaching in an Arkansas classroom, that repayment is forgiven. 

And so anybody that wants to join what I consider to be the greatest profession of all professions, there’s a pathway to help you do that. And the more we can share that and educate that with our young ones, the better off we are. But in 2024, our first year of that opportunity, we had about 739 candidates in that program. This past year, 2025, it increased to 1,143. 

So we’re seeing more people take advantage of this scholarship and try to go through our classrooms. And I’m optimistic that next year it’s going to be even greater. And the more we can celebrate and elevate the profession, the better off we are. We also have the STEP program, and that’s a scholarship. And it’s for Arkansas residents that come and decide to teach. And they may be on a traditional path or an alternate learning path in one of our areas that’s identified as critical shortage area. There’s some loan forgiveness opportunities. 

And then the top program is for educators that want to continue and pursue, maybe they want to go to graduate school and deepen their profession, maybe get an advanced degree in curriculum and assessment or educational leadership. There’s a scholarship for folks to want to stay in that profession, even if they want to move through their career ladder into a different role. 

We also do some teacher licensure events all throughout the state, and we promote some programs that we have in place. One we call the MATS and the other one called RPEP. We love great acronyms in education. But MATS is a master’s in arts in teaching, and that’s for someone that has a bachelor’s maybe in a content area but wants to get a degree in education. 

There’s a program to help them get a master’s in education. We currently have about 800 people participating in that program. And then RPEP is similar, and that’s through a program called I Teach. And it’s a state supported program, which has just over 700 folks in it.

 So even when you get to the classroom or come to the profession, there’s still professional learning and growth opportunities that are state supported that we know will help keep the pipeline going. And we also have a really active grow your own initiative. We know if we can invest in future candidates to come to the classroom that are already deeply rooted in a community, they tend to stay longer. 

One of the things that we’re really proud of is some of our apprenticeship programs. In fact, Arkansas was, I think, the first state and one of the only states to do a full registered apprenticeship for special education. But then we also have recognized through our partners at Office of Skills Development, becoming a classroom teacher as a registered apprentice. 

So you can be a working professional, like, say, for example, in the special education registered apprentice, like, you may be a para pro that wants to go back and become a teacher. This is an apprenticeship opportunity so that you can still be gainfully employed and then maybe take some courses at night or above and beyond to finish that bachelor’s degree to earn a license to get a certification. So I think it’s wonderful that we have a full registered apprenticeship program that many adults participate in. 

And then our certified teaching assistant program, we’ve built out. There’s a lot of our schools that have career pathways kind of in that CTE space, programs for future educators. And there’s a way that high school students can earn some of those industry national recognized certifications so that they can come into the classroom as well. 

When we’re looking at retention, we like to always kind of take a snapshot and see, are we keeping teachers year after year? Are they moving? Are they staying? Are they going? And you can see kind of that snapshot year over year, and I like to always look at things before COVID and after COVID as far as retention rates. So when you look at a stayer, the dark blue, that means that’s an educator that stayed, not even just in the classroom, but just within the same school. 

And you can see that there’s a little bit of an increase since 22-23, and even over 23-24, that more teachers are staying at their school. But it’s still below where we were pre-pandemic level. So we want to make sure that, as we look at ways to celebrate our educators and our teachers, we’re providing opportunities for them to stay in their school. But then you see in like the light blue, those are called movers. 

Those are teachers that may have transferred to a different school within a district. So staffing needs change. They’re still in the classroom, they’re still within their district. And then the kind of peach color there, like light pink, is a switcher. Means that they were in a school, but they are not in a classroom. They may have switched to an administrative role or maybe they’re an academic coach. They’re still working in the education profession, but they may not be in a classroom in a traditional sense as we know it. 

And then exiters are people that are no longer either in their profession or they’re not teaching. That percentage also includes retirees. So if folks are retiring, they would be factored into that exiter category. One of the things that I just want to go a little bit deeper on are those switchers. And those are the folks that we see moving to a non-teaching role, whether they’re staying in their district or maybe moving to a neighboring district. You can see it’s been a little bit of spike over time. 

And in 24-25, like this past school year, overall about 3.6 percent of our teachers left the classroom for an administrative or coaching job, which was a 1 percent increase over the previous year. So those are just some of the trends that we see happening throughout districts across the state. 

But when you look at retention rates by district, the range is somewhere between 55 and 95 percent, meaning 55 on the low end would mean about 45 percent of the teachers would have to be replaced. That means that’s a district where 55 percent of the teachers stayed back in that school and within that retention rate. And you can see like in the yellow, a lot of those average around 65 percent. 

So if you’re on the higher retention rate, you’re not seeing as much turnover in the darker colors. Some schools are over 95 percent. This is by district retention rate, meaning they stayed in the district, all the way down to yellow, where it’s somewhere between 55 and 65, which is a little bit concerning. 

We have some survey data on well-being and working conditions that’s done through the University of Arkansas’s College of Education and Health professors put together. And you can see overall that most teachers report being satisfied being an educator, which I think is great, is that we’re proud of our educators, and we want to see that they’re proud to be a teacher. And when they look at what is their primary source of stress, I don’t think it comes as a surprise, but managing student behavior is probably the biggest indicator of frustration for teachers. 

I am very curious after this school year to see what that survey looks like as we compare that data year after year, especially with the cell phone ban that we’ve implemented this school year. Because we’ve heard from a lot of teachers leading up to that, that that was a big barrier of their frustration and managing student behavior was the kids were always on their devices. 

So hopefully that we see a difference in the feedback we get. I just think that’s something that we want to monitor because we want to support our teachers. And we need administrators to support those teachers when they’re dealing with persistently disruptive students. 

And then when you look at teachers kind of following up on the well-being and working conditions, about 13% of the teachers reported that they plan to leave their current school year overall. And the major reasons that were cited, number one being lack of support, whether maybe that’s from their administrators or from the school district or from parents. They may not feel supported and appreciated. So this is good data that we share with principals, that we share with superintendents and district leaders to say, hey, we need to make sure we’re listening to our teachers. They feel supported. We’re addressing student behavior. We’re giving them the resources they need because we know that they make a difference. 

And anything we can do to support our teachers is something that we want to support as well. And then when you look at other kind of key policies for helping promote the teaching profession, we know we did some significant salary increases, moving our starting teacher salary. We went from kind of bottom in the nation to top five overnight. We’ve established teacher merit pay program, which I’m going to go into a little bit more detail. The teacher apprenticeship programs and the residencies programs, 

Arkansas has been down this path for a few years, and I really think is leading the nation. And in fact, we get asked to present to other states or share how we’re doing what we’re doing in this space, and really proud of that team. And then as we’re getting into classrooms and supporting teachers, we need to give them feedback and access to a coach and make sure that we’re helping improving their profession. 

Mentorships

We also have state supported teacher mentorships where all of our new teachers have access to a mentor for up to their first three years. Everybody’s assigned a mentor. I think about when I was a brand new teacher and had a mentor assigned to me, Miss Babcock, my first year teaching– I was teaching third grade– was my partner teacher and made my year go a lot better because whenever I needed ideas or strategies or I wasn’t getting to students or needed help talking to parents, she was always that rock and support. 

And our new teachers need to learn from our veteran teachers. They have the institutional knowledge. In fact, many of our mentors and veteran teachers have taught multiple generations of children within the same school, and their wealth and expertise is something that is valued and much needed. 

But we have about 4,500 new teachers assigned a mentor currently, right now. And we also have some professional growth opportunities for those teachers that want to deepen their knowledge and their practice and their toolkit. And we have as a state, designations called a lead professional educator or master professional educator designation. And that’s something that we also recognize with teacher merit pay that I’ll show you on the next slide. And we’re seeing enrollment increase year over year. 

A lot of folks are going back and saying  we want to participate in these programs. And we have a lot of research and evidence of support that the teachers that do go through these programs are having a greater impact on student outcomes. So the more we can invest in those professional opportunities, the better off we are. 

Teacher merit

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on teacher merit because we’ve done specific presentations on teacher merit. But we’re pretty excited that we were able to increase the number of teachers that we recognize over previous years. So we had just over 3,000 educators receive teacher merit or qualify for teacher merit in the first year of implementation. This past year was around 4,200. And you can see by the chart it’s impacted all of our school districts and all of our communities. 

And I still every day have to clarify every teacher’s eligible. And when the committee established the conditions, we wanted to make sure it included kindergarten teachers, art teachers, band teachers, chemistry teachers, everybody. Not just tested subject areas qualify for teacher merit. Anybody that spends more than 70% of their time with students, has three years of highly effective evaluations, and can qualify, whether it’s through our apprenticeship programs, our mentoring programs, our lead teacher designations, our student growth model, there’s a pathway to qualify for teacher merit. 

And Dr. Benton and her team are always working with districts and educators to help them get signed up on that path because we want to recognize and celebrate all of the rewarding designations that we can support. 

We also have a great partnership with the Milken Educator Family Foundation. And we’ve been very fortunate over the past couple years to have years where we’ve had two and and sometimes even three educators in a state like Arkansas qualify for what I think is one of the most prestigious education awards there is in the nation. 

We’re lucky to get one every year, and then for the past few years to get two or three, is a big testament to the quality of teachers that we have. And those teachers become part of learning networks and they get recognized with some compensation. In fact, they get a bonus of about $25,000. And we’re optimistic and hopeful that we’ll be able to continue that positive trend by having some teachers here qualify as well.

 And then we also participate in our annual teacher of the year process, which is a big professional learning growth opportunity. And those teachers become ambassadors for educators and give us ideas on how we can recruit, retain, and recognize. And they serve on our board and as a liaison and make sure that we have teacher voices represented very well throughout the agency. So I wanted to share some data and give an overview and then open the dialogue to any questions. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Garner, you’re recognized for a question. 

Representative Denise Garner Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Secretary Oliva. I just have a couple of questions about some of these scholarships. Is there, and I’m going back to the financial support for teachers– 

Jacob Oliva Yeah, I think that’s in the beginning. 

Representative Denise Garner Sorry, page seven. Sorry. It’s really a general question. So are the teachers that are getting ready to teach in these subjects or that are willing to go do, are they given priority or do we know by then, for those scholarship or for the scholarship– 

Jacob Oliva Like when they apply to be eligible? 

Representative Denise Garner Yes. Is there is there any qualification for– I mean, is it–

Jacob Oliva I might have to see if Dr. Benton knows that. 

Brandie Benton Okay, so the Arkansas Challenge Scholarship– what’s our scholarship system called? That ADHE, the lottery– SAMS. Thank you. So SAMS is the statewide scholarship application. And when a candidate completes that scholarship, it asks them a series of questions. And one of those has to do, do you intend to be a teacher? 

And so it automatically is going to match them with that scholarship based on how they respond. And then when their form submission goes to ADHE, they’re able to verify that enrollment and then award that prospective teacher, future teacher, that award amount. 

Representative Denise Garner Okay. And then the teacher academy scholarships? 

Brandie Benton Those are the teacher academy scholarships. 

Representative Denise Garner Okay, that’s that’s what that one is. 

Jacob Oliva Yeah, that would be included in that as well. 

Representative Denise Garner And then loan repayment, what about that one? 

Jacob Oliva So–

Representative Denise Garner I’m just trying to figure out what, if we’re incentivizing folks to go into those professions beforehand.

Jacob Oliva  I think that’s a great question. And it’s making those wheels turn about how we can maybe be more explicit in that. Because I don’t know of folks not qualifying yet because there wasn’t enough dollars to support the program. 

But I think what I’m hearing is if we get to that spot, how do we prioritize people that are going in those hard to staff subject areas like secondary science and want to teach in a critical designated area of the state that we know has a shortage or has high turnover. So that’s good feedback. 

I kind of look at it as different buckets, like the teacher academy scholarship are for people that are getting ready to go to school. And they’re going to want to be a teacher and they’re going to commit. Now when we look at teacher merit pay, some of the qualifying conditions are, are you highly effective teaching in a critical shortage area in a geographical hard to staff location. 

So there’s an incentive for those folks maybe coming out of school to want to go there and some of those other qualifying factors. But I think that’s a good question on how do we incorporate prioritizing those areas of need into these programs. I don’t know if we’ve done that. And be happy to take that back to the team. 

Representative Denise Garner Great, thank you. And one follow-up? 

Representative Keith Brooks You’re recognized.

Representative Denise Garner The other thing was supporting the teachers with mentorship, not with mentorships, but the mentor teachers. So those teachers, what I’ve heard is that we’ve got a lot of folks that have been mentor teachers for years and now they have to jump through more hoops. And what I want to know is what those hoops are and if we’re incentivizing them to do that. 

Jacob Oliva Are you talking about incentivizing the teacher to want to be a mentor? 

Representative Denise Garner Yes, the lead professional, yes. The lead professional teachers, the masters level. Do they understand what they need to do and how to do it? And I don’t. I’m just– 

Jacob Oliva Well, I’ll start and then I’ll let you go. I think the short answer is yes. Have we made it over complicated? Probably. Right? Because we tend to do that. But a lot of those teacher mentoring programs, we support through the educational cooperatives. And there are some financial dollars to support the cooperatives to do the training, right? 

And there may be some dollars to entice the mentor to participate in the training. But as far as what is required to that training, unless Dr. Benton knows, I may need to follow up and get a little bit deeper. But that’s something that we really are trying to run through our educational cooperatives because they’re there, right? They’re there within the districts. 

Representative Denise Garner But there is some financial– 

Jacob Oliva There’s about a $3.2, $3.4 million dollar allocation that supports teacher mentorship. 

Representative Denise Garner Okay. So the teachers get reimbursed and the cooperatives get reimbursed for some of that or could get? 

Jacob Oliva Could be, yeah. I think every program’s a little bit different. And that’s why it’s hard for me to answer because what’s happening in one region of state may look different. And that may be an opportunity to look at, to do a deeper dive. 

Representative Denise Garner So for me to get that information, is that on the website or through the cooperatives? What’s the best way for me to get that information? 

Brandie Benton It’s on the website under the, on the DESI website on the educator effectiveness side. 

Jacob Oliva We’ll send you a link. 

Representative Denise Garner Okay, great. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Duke, you’re recognized.

Retention rates

Representative Hope Duke Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you guys for this information. I always enjoy hearing the reviews that you guys have each year. I’ve got a couple of quick questions. My first one is on page 13 on the retention rates by district, you just have here the 2024-25 year. In previous years, what did that look like? I mean, are you seeing big changes? Are the districts staying relatively the same? 

And then to go along with that part of the question is, what are you all doing with that information? I know that you said you send that out to the principals and so the superintendents, I guess. But from your standpoint, if you’ve got a couple of districts that consistently have the high turnover, how are you, are you all digging into that to find out? 

Is it because of just having difficulty getting them to go to that area, or if there’s maybe potentially an issue with administration that may be happening? How deep do you dig? Is there a trend though that you see when you look at it? 

Jacob Oliva Well I think the trend would pretty much be the ones that are struggling continue to struggle, right? Let’s have some honest conversations around why that is. I think when we look at this data, one of the first things that we had to realize, and the legislature took a big step is when we see jumpers– it’s a new term I just added instead of switchers or leavers– is people were given leniency on a waiver to teach in a school district that they weren’t licensed for. 

And when that time went up, they would just go to another district and get a start a waiver over again. And when that time was up, they’d go to another district. All within probably a 25, 30 mile radius, we have people jumping from district to district, which shows up in this data. Like why can’t I hang on to everybody because everybody’s getting a three-year waiver. 

And it’s a snapshot, which is why we were like, we’ve got to get a little bit more sophisticated and invest in those teachers. If this is the profession for that teacher and they’re going to be in a district, why are we forcing them to keep jumping from district to district? Why can’t we get them licensed? So part of the challenge we see, especially in certain regions of the state, is we create a system that forced people to jump. 

And now that we’ve done the teacher licensure plan, it’s going to be like, now the license is with that teacher, not with a district. So step one, kind of policy-wise, I think that’s going to be a big step and to help stabilizing these districts. Because we’ve had teachers that didn’t want to leave districts, school administrators that didn’t want to lose teachers, but their waiver time was up, right? Like, why can’t we get this license with a teacher and not a waiver through the district? 

And two, to your question, I think when we look at that climate survey, kind of questions around do teachers feel supported, right, like why are they leaving? I think when we go in and start asking questions of superintendents and principals, those are the types of conversations that we need to have. 

And I say all the time, a good teacher will follow a good principal anywhere. A good teacher will leave a bad principal overnight. And as we look at this data and help inform our principal pathways, part of that is creating those conditions for success so that educators can thrive. And there’s still a lot of work to be done in that area. 

Representative Hope Duke So I would assume that you would also see test correlation with these districts that have the numbers of retention that’s much, much lower. Is that fair? 

Jacob Oliva I don’t know if I would validate that without pulling the number. 

Representative Hope Duke Do you guys ever look to see if there’s a correlation with the districts that are having–? And because that’s an impact, right? If you have teachers that are continually moving and you have that consistency, you gain experience in doing that third grade classroom in that school with that program year after year, rather than switching to a new school who does a different phonics program or whatever. 

Jacob Oliva Agreed. 

Representative Hope Duke So I’d be curious, I was just curious and what you all do with some of that. Also, when you gather all this information, and you talked about pushing it to the principals and superintendents, do you push it to your school board? Or do you rely upon  the admin?

Jacob Oliva  Typically we share it with the administrators. And you ask that question all the time. And you always reshape my thinking about, how are we getting information to school board members? And this is a great question that as we meet with those school boards in those communities, they need to have a seat at this table as well. 

Because they should be approving those personnel decisions, right, at the school board level. And they should be looking at their data on, do they have a lot of switchers, do they have a lot of movers, are they retaining educators, what are their satisfaction results as well? 

Representative Hope Duke I think that would be helpful for them, especially to hold their superintendents accountable because you get those monthly resignations or whatever you have, but it’s a whole different thing when you see a snapshot like that of just what that is for the year. My next question would be on, when you did these surveys, do you have the numbers for us and how many responded to the surveys? 

Jacob Oliva We can get that. This survey was done through the University of Arkansas Health and Education Division, but I’m sure they have all of that. We can get hard numbers. 

Representative Hope Duke That would be great. Just because I know we had a survey last year, I think that we had a teacher survey on when we were going through ad hoc school or whatever. And it was such a small fraction of teachers that answered. I think this is reflective. At least from the feedback that I receive, I think it is reflective. 

But I do think it helps to know the pool of people you’re surveying whenever you’re looking at data like that. And I have one final one. On the teachers and the different reasons why they were leaving, I’m trying to find that bar graph. 

Jacob Oliva The sources of stress or the reported reasons to leave current school? 

Representative Hope Duke The pre pandemic rates. 

Jacob Oliva Oh, that was earlier. 

Representative Hope Duke I just noticed the trend on those, like you’ve got 9.2 percent on the exiters. And you said that  also includes your retirees. 

Jacob Oliva Yes, ma’am. 

Representative Hope Duke Do you have the breakdown on what that’s retirees and what people are just actually leaving? 

Jacob Oliva I’m sure we can get that. I don’t have that in front of me, but I’m sure we can get that for you.

Representative Hope Duke Because I think that paints a different picture, too, of who’s leaving and then who’s exiting. Because that is higher, as you know. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know obviously. But for us to understand why are they leaving, again, I think we got a pretty good handle on, just most of us hear feedback from the teachers and people that we talk to. 

Like I said, I think that survey’s pretty reflective. A lot of it has to do with student behavior issues and discipline and lack thereof, or lack of support from admin in dealing with discipline problems and stuff too. But I would like to know how many of them are the retirees. Sometimes our retirees are retiring earlier, right, for the same reasons. 

Jacob Oliva I’ve heard that. And teaching is a tough job. But it’s a rewarding job. And if we can keep our best teachers in the classroom longer, it’s a win for everybody. 

Representative Hope Duke Well, thank you guys for this information. I think it’s fascinating. I could talk about this all day long, but I’m going to get out of the queue. I don’t even have another question. 

Jacob Oliva Can we have that in the minutes, Chair Brooks? It’s on record. 

Representative Keith Brooks Fair enough. Representative Walker, you’re recognized. 

Student behavior management

Representative Steven Walker Thank you, Mr. Chair. And congratulations, Doctor Benton, on your new position. My question’s on page 14 with managing student behavior, I see that as also classroom management skills for teachers, where it’s more than double all the other fields that are in there. 

And I thought a lot of the managing student behavior classroom management skills were taught by our universities with the teaching program. And so it’s just concerning that that’s a category that is more than double all the other ones. So I guess my question, do we ever take a hard look at what our universities are doing with the teaching program, how they’re training our teachers as they come out into the field? 

And we do have a category that just stands out from all the others that our universities should be teaching? Just do we ever, how hard of a look do we take to figure out if they’re training our kids well before they come out into the profession? 

Jacob Oliva Yeah. So I think that’s a great question. And I go back to, we have to look at the two kind of pathways maybe, initially, like if you’re going through a teacher prep program versus that alternative route, and what is that support for an alternative route teacher? Because they may not have been getting like, say, deliberate practice in classroom management strategies, which is why it’s important for those mentors. 

And as I’m saying this out loud, it makes me think, too, we probably need to break down even where those teachers are on an alternative route, because my theory is it’s a higher percentage of secondary versus primary grades. Because I think more primary teachers go the traditional route, which is where they may see some classroom management behaviors. 

It’s a good question that’s making my wheels spin a little bit here. But the quick answer is, do we evaluate these programs? Yes. Is there a reality that I hear from superintendents often is that I hire a teacher from a teacher program and they’re not day one ready? A thousand percent, right. You can ask any superintendent or any principal that. So is there a disconnect between how we’re preparing that candidate to be successful and being day one ready? I think so. 

One, not even just from a classroom management perspective, but a pedagogical perspective on making sure teachers know how to teach and design good lessons which impacts classroom management too, right, like when the students are engaged properly. So that’s forced us to have different conversations. 

And Dr. Benton can probably go in a little bit more deeper on that because when you look at that historical model for that teacher to the classroom experience and it being where you sit in a classroom and get taught theories is not preparing someone to be day one ready. So we’ve had to have some very honest conversations around our teacher programs and say, these need to be redesigned. 

And we’ve made a little bit of steps but we’re not all the way there because we need teacher candidates to get supported by our master teachers in a classroom through that teacher in residency or the teacher apprenticeship process so that they are day one ready and stop sitting in a classroom listening about theories that don’t rely on practice to help kids that are in front of them each and every single day. 

So we’re currently doing, which was a requirement of this legislature, an audit on the science of reading where we’re going to all the people because– and I don’t know if it’s your office or higher ed, but like in order to teach teaching programs, we check off that there’s a lot of the criteria that’s met. I don’t want to get too weedy into that. But one is we’re going into  the professors’ classrooms and evaluating their ability to teach the science of reading. 

And that report’s coming out. And it’s going to be alarming for a lot of our institutions that are going to get an unsatisfactory ranking. Right? But we need to start having some honest conversations with these folks because they may not be day right one ready. And in fact, I share a story about, one, is when we first started doing this, the number of deans of schools– and it’s not all of them. 

Most of them have been very good, very cooperative, doing a wonderful job. But there’s a handful. One said that we’re not allowed to come and observe their professors. And we have to get on the phone with the presidents of these institutions to be like, no, we’re coming. This is a requirement. 

But we had one that was scheduled where a group of folks, like they knew we were coming, and it was at a certain time, and our agency working with some partnerships and co-ops, everybody’s scheduled to go and start calibrating this classroom, and the professor showed up 45 minutes late for a reading class. And then we wonder why our teachers aren’t ready to teach reading, right? 

So I think the first answer to your question is, are we evaluating these programs? Yes. The second part is, do we need to redesign teacher education and preparation? Yeah, yeah. It’s an antiquated model that is filled with theories that don’t apply to practice when we know that if we can get the practice to change in a classroom, that makes our future candidates better. And you’re doing a lot of work in this space. I don’t know if you want to go a little bit deeper. I hope I’m on the line of your questioning. 

Brandie Benton So a couple of years ago, my division, Educator Effectiveness, developed a framework and a system to evaluate our ed prep programs. Secretary Oliva talked about the science of reading audits. But there’s a second layer of that where we have trained site visitors, other educators across the state, to visit those EPPs and to, again, observe the professors, but also to go into the schools and observe their candidates and their completers and their teaching. 

So it’s actually kind of a two-pronged approach to how we are evaluating our ed prep programs. One is just a general looking at the programs of study, seeing how well they prepare candidates across a wide number of metrics. And then the other evaluation is focused on the science of reading and how they’re teaching literacy and whether or not those completers are actually prepared to do that and do that well. 

And that includes looking again at their student growth scores of their completers as well. And as the secretary said, we’re finishing up the evaluations of the remaining EPPs. There are 22 ed prep programs in Arkansas. There are five programs that are being reviewed this fall. In the spring, we’ll have a complete data set from both of those sets of evaluations, and we’ll be able to share back our findings and then use that information in the data that we get from the data to make some informed decisions about what kind of guidance or what kind of requirements we want these ed prep programs to have moving forward. And so again that will be released in the spring at some point. 

Jacob Oliva I’ll also add one more, then if you have follow up. But I have ideas, too, I think, about how we can go deeper. I’d love to talk to you about that maybe for a future session. I don’t want any spoiler alerts in this committee. 

Representative Steven Walker I appreciate y’all’s detailed explanation on it. And I am happy to hear that you guys are going into the universities because we need to know what’s going on. That way if we get a graph or a chart like this that shows that one specific thing outweighs all the other areas, then we have the insight to know whether it’s our institutions or where the disconnect may be going on. But I do agree that we need– I feel like that’s an emphasis. 

Because I know when I go out into school districts or in the community, talking to other teachers that are out there, I would say a lot of the complaints or concerns that I hear would pretty much closely follow the percentages that are on this chart. And one of the biggest complaints that I hear is they don’t feel like they were prepared for classroom management skills. 

When they go in, they’re just flying blind and hoping they can figure it out before they get ran out of the profession. And I’ve been concerned with it for a while. But this chart, I mean, it pretty much is what I’m hearing out in the district. So if we’re able to figure out how to address that, in my opinion, that would help teachers across our state and maybe the retention rate. 

Jacob Oliva Well, and I think when we look at the national research, if a teacher can make it through their first three to five years, they typically stay in their profession, right? Like to your point, if they’re just getting thrown in there and they’re not adequately supported and prepared, they’re probably not going to make it through those first three years. And when you look at the sustainability and longevity for teachers staying in the classroom, that’s where we really need to double down our investment on those teachers in that critical time frame. 

Representative Steven Walker I appreciate it. Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Mayberry, you’re recognized.

Representative Julie Mayberry Thank you. I’m going to go back to page 11 where it has the pre pandemic rates before COVID, after COVID, the stayers, the movers, the switchers, the exiters, if you don’t mind going back to that. Because I’m trying to see if I could do a little deeper dive into definitions here and the difference between a mover and an exiter. So my question is if a teacher leaves the public school or charter school and goes to teach at a private school, where are they listed in this? 

Jacob Oliva That’s a great question. So they would be in the exiter button. 

Representative Julie Mayberry Okay. 

Jacob Oliva Bucket, I should say, not button. 

Representative Julie Mayberry  I guess that’s kind of my question because we’re looking at passing the LEARNS Act, that would be the 22, the 23, the 24, the 25 school years. Are we seeing a lot of– some of that increase, is that because we have some teachers who are going to teach at private school because, of course, our private schools are having more students and I would think that means they need more teachers? 

Jacob Oliva Yeah. It could be, right? Like, I think you’re asking the right question. I don’t know. Because we ask these teachers to do an exit survey. I don’t know if we collect if they’re leaving the district to go to a private school. And that may be an element we want to add if we don’t because that may create a new bucket.

Representative Julie Mayberry I think that’s important to have, to see are they leaving the school system to continue teaching but teaching in private school. Or are they just so fed up with the profession that they’re getting out completely. And I think that’s an interesting thing that you might want to consider, whoever does this next time, to add that question in there to get a little bit more qualifying. 

Jacob Oliva I agree. I think that’s a fair question because they’re not exiting the profession, I think, is what you’re trying to get down to. So we may need to update that survey to reflect, like, you may not be in your district or charter school, but are you staying in the profession in another capacity? I don’t know if we collect that, but we can look at that. 

Representative Julie Mayberry Because I think that’s a new trend. So thank you very much. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Beck. 

Job switching

Representative Rick Beck Thank you, Mr. Chair. So you’ve kind of danced around the question, or really I guess it’s more of a statement. I was reading an article about professionals and how long they stay. It’s a new thing now, right, that professionals do not stay at a job very long. As a matter of fact, like a couple of years and they’re out or whatever. So I was wondering on the retention. Have you guys looked at that? Are some of these professionals just like it’s a normal thing that professionals will leave a job? 

And quite often, I was surprised that quite often they will go to another profession or a whole other area of that profession. So how much of this retention, because in some cases we’re very close to the overall numbers, is that just actually– and the interesting point that they made was the brightest were the ones that were jumping the most. So I thought that was kind of interesting. 

Jacob Oliva I think there’s some research on different generations when they look at kind of career investments. I want to say I read somewhere recently, probably some of the same articles you’re reading that says like most of the generations that are in this workforce now over their lifetime will have fourteen to sixteen different jobs in different fields, right? Like it’s not even bouncing around within a field. Folks aren’t afraid to just do something different. 

I think Representative Mayberry is kind of getting to this point, like maybe folks are leaving but they’re still working in education, which is why I think this is the greatest profession. Because even if you wanted to do something different, and in a lot of our communities, the school district’s the largest employer, they don’t just hire teachers, right? 

So maybe you are a teacher and you still want to work in schools, but you may become a diesel mechanic or you may become an electrician or a computer network technician or a school administrator or a coach. So I guess my wonder, and I think it’s kind of along what you’re saying is, are you leaving education altogether or are you doing a different role in education, maybe in a different capacity? 

Because I know a lot of folks that might become the school finance director. They’re in finance now, right. Like if you look at their job code, but they started as a math teacher. You know what I mean? And is that considered a career change? I don’t know. They’re still in education, but they’re doing completely different work. And so maybe there’s ways we can get more sophisticated and capture that. It’s a good question or statement. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Andrews. 

Representative Wade Andrews Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just kind of want to bounce off Representative Walker’s question about managing behavior and all that. Because I, too, hear from teachers that it can be challenging to address behaviors in the classroom. And I just kind of want to know what are some solutions and what are y’all kind of looking at to fix those problems? 

But also I really want to know in kind of backstory here, I know children, students act out in the classroom for different reasons, whether it’s socioeconomic or bad home life, or they’re just hungry, they’re bored, or they want to cause mischief or whatever it may be. How many schools are still using corporal punishment? How many are using detention? How many are, say, all right, instead of whooping you or give you D Hall, we’ll go make you pick up trash or mop the floor? What are schools using for punishment? 

Jacob Oliva Well, that’s a good question with a lot of different answers. And I’m trying to wrap my head around how we could pull that because I think some of the examples that you cited for interventions, we probably got a little bit of everything going across the entire state. 

Representative Wade Andrews Yeah, for some kids, three licks from the paddle and send them back in the classroom and they’re taken care of. Some need to sit down with a therapist. How do we teach our teachers to be able to manage the whole spectrum properly without overwhelming them? 

Jacob Oliva Yeah. Good question. And I guess when you’re looking at classroom management is, and you kind of alluded to it, you have to get to the antecedent of the behavior. Like, why is the kid acting up? And when you look at kind of the student study team approach, there could be a myriad of answers, whether it’s tied to home life, whether it’s tied to cognitive issues, whether it’s tied to different parts of the environment within a school, right? 

Like why do some kids react to some teachers and not others? Like there a lot that goes into that plan. But what we need to make sure is that, one, we got to hold parents accountable for their children’s behavior. And at some point we’ve lost our way and said that everything is the school’s fault. 

And I know schools have a lot of challenges. We need administrators to know that they’re going to be supported. No student has the right to disrupt the learning of themselves and others while hurting people. And when I hear about the frustration from teachers not feeling supported, we’ve got students that are being violent against educators and there’s no consequences. And they’re showing back up in the classroom. 

I think that’s ridiculous. And I think that anybody that’s being violent in a school needs to have that student study team assembled and that student be put in an environment where they’re going to be supported and not hurt themselves or others. And it really starts with that belief, but we also have to hold parents accountable and make sure that they’re doing their part to make sure that this student’s being successful at school as well. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Gonzales Worthen, you’re recognized. 

Science and ELS

Representative Diana Gonzales Worthen Thank you for taking our questions and I look forward to visiting with you on a couple of different topics related to teacher shortage areas. One, Representative Garner mentioned earlier about looking at incentivizing possibly or what are we doing in terms of trying to possibly incentivize teachers that might have the desire to become a science teacher one day, a math teacher. I’m a former science teacher. 

That was something, and I’ll go into that here in just a little bit, but one of the things that I’ve noticed in teaching is, and working with all grade levels, is that we have a lot of elementary, middle school, junior high kids who absolutely love science or math. And they’re involved with East or Robotics or they’re in the chess club. They’re kind of math science driven. That’s kind of where they’re thinking. 

But I wonder what we might do, or if that might be a place early on for possible recruitment of those students and putting that seed in place. Have you ever thought about becoming a teacher in the future? You know, you have some kids who have the propensity of they love helping another student learn math. 

The teacher has explained it three times, the student doesn’t get it, but their friend can give it to them like this and they’ve got it. I don’t know. It’s just something that I’m thinking about. I see it a lot. There’s kids that would be, I mean, that to me– I don’t know. What do you think about that, in terms of–? 

Jacob Oliva I love it. I think that’s the innovation that we need to see happening in our schools. And we need to let folks know that we don’t have to maintain the status quo. And if we can find innovative ways to tailor that personalized learning experience for those students, then that’s really what this is about. And what you’re talking about is relevancy, right? 

When kids can see what they’re learning relates to the world around them, whether that leads to a future industry or career or whether it’s back to the classroom, that’s what gets kids excited. That gives them hope. That gives them curiosity. And that’s what is the spark behind learning. 

And I think, too, like where we want to be more innovative and creative, and we talk about licensing and all of these different traditional pathways, non-traditional pathways, but some of those specialized content areas, like you’re talking about like high school science, if you want to find an AP physics teacher in certain parts of the state, that’s really hard to do, right? 

So how do we maybe regionalize that support, look at virtual options? We haven’t talked about AI and what generative information and AI instruction looks like, but there’s schools across the nation that’s talking about, how do we incorporate that to tailor that experience. And I don’t know if we know all those answers yet, but those are conversations that we’re having. I think there’s some school districts that are being creative. 

And when they think of a teacher to teach a specialized contract, they use like an adjunct model that you may have seen at a state college or university where you go to the local industry that’s in town that, has a resident physics doing some kind of engineering product and say, Hey, I don’t need you 178 days a year, 7 1/2 hours a day. But if you can come two or three days a week for an hour, would your company work with us to send you there and then we can send kids there and let’s build a relationship. 

So our kids are learning from the industry and the industry also wants to get back to the pipeline. Because they want to see their professions grow. So I think what you’re talking about is how do we incentivize innovation. And that’s part of why we’re having this conversation, because I think there’s just a lot of opportunities to do just that. 

Representative Diana Gonzales Worthen I have one follow-up. And that’s related to slide number two. I was looking at the number of teachers in particular license areas. And I do have a bit of a concern with an area, English for speakers of other languages, the ESL. In this case, it would be the endorsement. We do have a lot of teachers, 11,041 teachers, who hold an ESL endorsement, which is absolutely wonderful. 

However, we have 43,000 English learners statewide and 70,000 language minority students. And then you start adding, you add 7,500 English learners with disabilities and then 225 English learners who are also gifted. And so that has me a little bit, I don’t think we have enough ESL endorsed teachers. 

But at the same time I don’t know what could we do to help increase that? Because I think right now it’s still pretty much voluntary to get an ESL endorsement. There’s a lot of teachers will receive one, go to do the extra coursework and Praxis exam, etc, when they see that half their kids are English learners. There’s definitely a need. But what can we do to help increase that with our numbers given statewide? 

Jacob Oliva I think that’s a great question. And I think to kind of layer on top of the complexity of the point you make is that while there may be 11,000 teachers endorsed or licensed to teach ESL, that means it’s on their license, but they may not be working in that area as well, right? So license doesn’t necessarily equate to job placement. 

So we may have 11,000 licensed ESL teachers, but only 500 teachers work in ESL, right? So I think the first part of the answer to your question is, how do we get a snapshot of who’s teaching these programs and what are the courses. And then maybe we need to consider certain requirements for teachers to have specific training if they’re working with different level of students in this program. 

I don’t know if we’ve gotten that sophisticated yet, but that could be something that we’d love to have a conversation with you about because there’s some best practices in other states. I don’t know if we need to reinvent something new, but there may be a way to build upon what we have and make it a little stronger. 

Representative Diana Gonzales Worthen Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Seeing no additional questions, Doctor Benton, thank you for your time. And Secretary Oliva, thank you as well. Secretary, if you would just hang there for just a moment. I think there’s just a couple of additional questions from members. Members, without objection, we have one more quick presentation from Miss Kenya Flores about a partnership with the School of the Blind. 

But I’m going to jump over that and go to other business. I believe there was maybe one question relative to any updates on our discussion last week about child care vouchers. So I don’t know if there’s a specific question or if maybe members just wanted to see if there’s additional information that can be provided at this time. 

Jacob Oliva Yeah, so since the last time we met, we talked about starting the sliding scale payment program with parents. So we’ve been working with providers on that and pausing the reimbursement rates. We all know that the federal government is shut down, so there’s not really a whole lot of updates about future year funding or extending current funding until we get that continuum resolution across the finish line and we can work with our folks, our representatives, from the Office of Health Services. 

But we have an early learning coalition or committee that meets, I want to say, quarterly. We’re going to ask them to do a meeting next week. We’re going to pull in representatives across the state. Next week we’re pulling some data and information so that we can share with them everything that we have, see if they have any ideas for long term sustainability of this program. 

Representative Keith Brooks Would you be able to take a couple questions? 

Representative DeAnn Vaught Thank you, Mr Chair. Do we know, have we had facilities that’s had to close down? And if we have, how many have already had to close their doors? 

Jacob Oliva Yeah, I haven’t heard of any. And I don’t know if we’re tracking that, but I can find out for you. I’d be happy to.

Representative DeAnn Vaught And then your meeting next week, will it be live? 

Jacob Oliva It’ll be a publicly noticed meeting. I don’t know if we’ve coordinated where and the logistics, but it’ll be a publicly noticed meeting. 

Representative DeAnn Vaught And is there a way that we can get an invitation to that so that we can come and listen? 

Jacob Oliva Happy to. 

Representative DeAnn Vaught Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Mayberry.

Representative Julie Mayberry Thank you. I had asked the question last week about a rule change and an official rule change or whatever, and you had made the statement that it’s federal dollars. And I guess maybe I didn’t ask the question well enough at the time, but when we use federal dollars, there is an approval process, whether it’s through us or someone else federally that would look at that. 

And I was told that you have to have some type of report federally filed within sixty days if you make changes to a program. And am I understanding that right? Or just still help me, help me gather, because I can’t imagine that the federal government would say, Here’s all this money and do whatever you want with it and change it whenever you want and all that. 

And we have significantly changed, not obviously, there’s a dollar amount, but just the way that the program is being funded instead of on these tiers of level three, four, five, six, getting different amounts to a flat rate. 

Jacob Oliva Sure. So I’m not sure what rule or process you’re referring to. I can investigate or follow up with you. But what I’ll state again today, what I’ve stated before with the legislature is the current rate system is unsustainable. This program will not exist by Christmas. 

We are using reserves right now making payments that we can’t afford to do. And if the government doesn’t open up and we get a next quarter payment, I’m going to be back here in two to three weeks to tell you there’s no more program. So what did we do as an agency when we looked at that rate spend? We knew that that wasn’t going to happen. We put together a strategy to slow this down to sustain the program. 

Nobody likes that strategy. Everybody’s complaining about it. We put a pause on that strategy, say we’re going to work with stakeholders and maybe they can help give us a better strategy. But it’s an unsustainable program. And if we can come up with better ideas, if the legislature wants to to help support, we’re willing to do that. 

But what I’m telling you is we don’t have $6 to $8 million a month to maintain the status quo. And that is unsustainable. And every week that goes by is $2 to $3 million that we don’t have additionally coming into that pot of money. 

Representative Julie Mayberry I understand that, and that point has been made very clear. I’m not arguing that point. I guess, I’m just making sure that we’re crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s because I’m just kind of baffled with how you could make such a substantial change in just the way it’s being funded without some type of approval process. 

I mean, I’ve dealt a little bit more on the healthcare side, and if we change Medicaid, even though it may not be a state plan or whatever, you have to go through CMS and you can’t do it until you get that approval. And I just want to make sure that we’re not–

Jacob Oliva Sure. 

Representative Julie Mayberry You know. Thank you.

Jacob Oliva I think it’s a fair question. 

Representative Keith Brooks Representative Garner. 

Representative Denise Garner Thank you, Mr Chair. Thank you, Secretary. I just have a question a little bit more, wanting a little bit more detail on the coalition meeting. Who’s on that coalition? 

Jacob Oliva I don’t have the list in front of me, but we can set up. I forget how all the appointees are happening, but it’s an established coalition. 

Representative Denise Garner So is the early childhood commission part– be a part of it?

Jacob Oliva Is that what I’m talking about? I might be calling it the wrong name. I’m sorry, I’m calling it the wrong name. The Early Childhood Commission. That’s who we’re going to try to get to meet with us next week. I apologize. 

Representative Denise Garner Has that notice gone out? And I just missed it? 

Jacob Oliva We haven’t scheduled the meeting. You asked what the update is. I literally met with our team this morning, said we need to pull these reports. Let’s get the commission in next week. Well, we got to probably find a bigger space if we’re going to invite all of our friends and get that noticed. And I’m hearing from Representative Vaught that maybe we want to stream it. Those are things that we got to figure out. But our intention is to pull that group together by next week. 

Representative Denise Garner The commission meetings are usually streamed, I think. 

Jacob Oliva Okay. 

Representative Denise Garner At least Zoom is available. 

Jacob Oliva We’ll follow that process. 

Representative Denise Garner Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Senator Sullivan. 

Senator Dan Sullivan Thank you. In general, are you allowed to spend money that hasn’t been appropriated? In other words, if there’s no money in the budget, you’re limited in your ability to shift money around to pay for programs. Would that be true? 

Jacob Oliva Within reason, yes, I would say that that’s true.

Senator Dan Sullivan Okay. Within reason is a reasonable answer. You can’t spend the money that hasn’t been appropriated. If there’s zero in the budget, there’s zero in the budget. Can you figure out ways to work around that? Yeah. But generally speaking, we didn’t appropriate the money and right now there’s zero in the budget. Thank you. 

Representative Keith Brooks Seeing no additional questions, thank you, Secretary Oliva. Members, final thing on our agenda, item F, presentation of a pilot program with Miss Kenya Flores. Ms. Flores, if you would, please join us at the table. And when you get here, we can go ahead and introduce yourself and then you’re recognized. Thank you for being here with us, Kenya, and we look forward to hearing from you. 

Kenya Flores Thank you. Kenya Flores, manager of government relations at Learning Ally. Can you all hear me okay? 

Representative Keith Brooks Yes, ma’am. 

Learning Ally books for blind students

Kenya Flores Okay, great. Good afternoon. It’s an honor to be here in Little Rock this afternoon with all of you, and I thank you in advance for your time and attention today. Like all of you, I am committed to helping improve literacy outcomes. By way of introduction, I am Kenya Flores and I have the pleasure of serving as manager of government relations at Learning Ally, a nonprofit education technology organization. 

Learning Ally was founded right after World War II. Our founder Anne McDonald wanted blinded veterans to be able to take advantage of educational opportunities presented to them after the passage of the GI Bill. She began recording books in the basement of the New York Public Library. What was once recording for the blind has evolved to become Learning Ally today. 

I will share more about our work in a moment, but I’d like to share a little bit of my lived experience with you before getting to that. My story exemplifies what is possible when students are provided with necessary support in the classroom. I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I had a fairly normal upbringing, except for one characteristic. 

I have been blind since birth, and my parents did not know how to raise a blind child. I was and still am the only blind person in my family. I often tell people blindness itself is not the challenge. It is a low expectation society has for people with disabilities as well as lack of accessibility. However, I am blessed to have had access to educational opportunities and the necessary accommodations I needed as a blind person in order to level the playing field and allow me to participate in mainstream education just like my sighted peers in both K through 12 schools and at Furman University. 

While I had many incredible educators throughout my educational journey, I had many who believed accessibility was optional. However, I have had yet to encounter a challenge I did not face head on. As a result, I am now fortunate to have a meaningful job that allows me to make a positive impact in the lives of thousands of students, and I am able to contribute to the US economy just like anyone else. However, my story could have turned out much differently without access to accommodations such as the Learning Ally Audiobook Solution. 

At Learning Ally, we believe that listening is vital to learning. From the youngest age, children learn by listening and then by engaging in meaningful conversations. By equipping early and struggling learners with our ebooks, we allow them to access curriculum literature and popular titles that help them expand learning for millions of students. The audiobook solution is an accommodation available to Is available on any device capable of connecting to the internet or downloading the Learning Ally audiobook application. 

However, internet access is not necessary once books are downloaded, which is really critical for students located in rural areas. The audiobook solution is an interactive solution that contains human narrated books, highlighting capabilities in an embedded dictionary. The educator is able to monitor the books on students’ bookshelves as well as follow their progress throughout the school year. 

Any student with a learning deficit such as dyslexia can benefit from the audiobook solution. It is not meant to substitute the focus on structured literacy instruction. However, it is meant to serve as a supplemental accommodation as students build their foundational reading skills found in Scarborough’s Reading Rope. It is particularly useful in enhancing students’ comprehension. Because reading is fundamental, lack of comprehension affects students in all academic content areas. 

Additionally, audiobooks help with vocabulary growth, fluency, and comprehension of more complex syntax. Today we continue Anne’s legacy to break down the barriers that deny countless individuals the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to achieve their full potential. We are so incredibly grateful to be a partner to the Arkansas Department of Education for the 2025-2026 school year. 

Secretary Oliva, with the support of Senator Davis, has committed to providing the audiobook solution to blind and visually impaired students across Arkansas who attend mainstream schools. As a way of honoring our founder, we continue to provide the audiobook solution to all US schools for the blind at no cost to them. 

Our North Star is that every student, regardless of learning difference, is able to graduate and pursue higher education or a workforce pathway. Similarly to the Learns Act, our goals are to strengthen literacy outcomes, increase educator access, support teachers, and empower families. I sincerely thank you for your time and attention today, and I thank you for your efforts to lead the way in regards to literacy reform in Arkansas. 

We look forward to continuing to be an ally to the state of Arkansas. Thank you, and I’m happy to answer any questions. 

Representative Keith Brooks Thank you, Miss Flores. Wonderful to hear about the work that’s taking place for visually impaired students all over the state and in your work in that. Are there questions from members? Representative Mayberry, you’re recognized. 

Representative Julie Mayberry I’m sorry, just a real quick question. Can you tell me what you are reading from, how that was put together? Explain a little bit to us. 

Kenya Flores Yeah. So this is just a booklet. It has hard copy braille. And I just wrote up a document last week and had it produced in braille just because that’s my preferred way of reading. And like instead of using electronic braille, because you can only read like one line at a time typically. So it’s just a hard copy form of what you would see on a printed screen or if I printed this out. And I’m happy to pass it around if anyone is interested.

Representative Julie Mayberry Did you type it or did you verbally say it and then it printed it? I’m just curious. 

Kenya Flores No, so I typed it on a regular laptop using a screen reader, which is basically a robot that talks to me in my ear and reads out everything that I’m typing. And then I read through it using a braille display, which is a machine that can connect to a laptop via a USB cable, and then I can read the braille on it so I proofread that. And then it’s something called embossing. So instead of printing, just visualize the same process of printing a document, but instead it’s a very loud machine called an embosser and it produces braille on paper. 

Representative Julie Mayberry And it puts it in that spiral. 

Kenya Flores No, you have to do that separately. I just like having it in a booklet.

Representative Julie Mayberry Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well thank you. I love learning and thought you could tell us how you brought the information to us. Thank you so much. 

Representative Keith Brooks And I believe, Ms. Flores, I would imagine the several members might be interested to see that after the committee meeting adjourns. It’s fascinating. And love that, again, that there’s so many options available for students to learn as well. So seeing no additional questions, thank you so much for your time and your presentation. We appreciate it very much. 

Members, as we close out, a reminder tomorrow we’ll be meeting at 10 a.m. in Marianna at Lee County High School. The agenda is available online. Sorry, the elementary school, I apologize. Anna Strong elementary school in Marianna tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. and then several tours to follow. And look forward to a great day there. And seeing no additional business before the committee, committee is adjourned.