The Reform Alliance has joined the Arkansas Department of Education Office of School Choice and Parent Empowerment on a statewide tour holding town hall-style presentations to talk about all educational options and answer participant questions.
The tour kicked off Feb. 11 at Easterseals Arkansas in Little Rock. And will continue to locations all over the state with stops every Tuesday at 6 p.m. and noon every Wednesday each week through early May, including:
6 p.m. Feb. 25: House of Opportunity in Forrest City
Noon Feb. 26: West Memphis Public Library in West Memphis
6 p.m. March 4: The Depot, Warren
Noon March 5: Southeast Arkansas Regional Library, Monticello
6 pm March 11: Columbia Christian School, Magnolia
To find the full tour schedule and RSVP for any location, please visit our events page.
“Last month, as we celebrated National School Choice Week in Arkansas, we saw hundreds of families turn out in Little Rock and many more as we held community events throughout the state,” said Emmy Henely, managing director of The Reform Alliance. “All wanted to know more about the range of choices available to them, even if they didn’t plan to use them.”
“I didn’t realize there were so many different schools … like with charter schools and online schools and things like that” said one visitor to the Little Rock event. “I didn’t know we had so many different choices.”
Many Arkansas families are in the same position, unaware of what options exist or what’s available where they live, said Henley. The tour is intended to continue the work of National School Choice Week and help families understand and navigate those options.
“Our goal is to cover everything from transferring between public districts to enrolling in charter schools to scholarship programs that can help pay for private school and even homeschool or microschool,” said Henley.
