MonticelloLive

According to Director Lorenzo Simmons, declining enrollment and the recent opening of the Ashley-Drew Learning Academy in Fountain Hill forced Monticello’s Arise Charter School to surrender its charter to the state board of education on Monday. Students enrolled at the school will be re-enrolled at other area schools.

Although the school opened with 75 students in fourth-eighth grades in 2004, enrollment dropped to approximately 40 this year.

According to an article in Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Northwest edition,

Charter schools are taxpayerfunded public schools that are exempted from some of the laws and rules that govern traditional public schools and, as a result, can be somewhat experimental in their operation and instruction. They operate according to the terms of a contract, or charter, with the state.

Arkansas has both conversion charters, which are operated by a traditional school district, and open-enrollment charters, operated by nonprofit organizations other than school districts. The state has a cap of 24 open-enrollment charter schools, or six per U. S. congressional district.