The Little Rock School District's services to students with dyslexia or symptoms of dyslexia are almost nonexistent at the high schools and full of holes at the middle and elementary schools, an Arkansas Department of Education team has reported.

Arkansas Department of Education leaders said recent audits of the district's dyslexia and special education services showed that the dyslexia services in particular are an inadequate response to a 2013 state law that requires districts to help students become proficient readers.

Stacy Smith, the Education Department's assistant commissioner for learning services, called the audit on dyslexia services disappointing for the district and for the state agency, which oversees the state-controlled Little Rock district.

In response to the dyslexia services audit -- which was requested in December by state Education Board member Diane Zook of Melbourne -- the state agency is aiding the Little Rock district in upgrading identification and intervention methods and in adopting new textbooks that incorporate strategies helping dyslexic students.

Zook, a former special education teacher and special education administrator, said 12 to 20 percent of students have dyslexia but that the Little Rock district identification rate was at 5 percent.

After hearing the Education Department's preliminary reports, Zook called the condition of the district's services up to now both frustrating and an embarrassment. Board member Ouida Newton of Poyen said she was angry about the lack of services and the students' missed opportunities.

Document Little Rock School District dyslexia audit View

Zook called on Little Rock Deputy Superintendents Sadie Mitchell and Marvin Burton, along with Chief Academic Officer Veronica Perkins, to explain how the problems occurred in light of the 2013 law on dyslexia and 40 years of requirements for special education.

Mitchell said that the district has been subject to special education monitoring for years but has come to realize more recently that expertise was needed to help the district organize services for dyslexia. She said the district leaders agree with the dyslexia services audit findings, they realize there are problems and they are working through them.

"Hopefully, we can be a model to the state," Mitchell said.

Pressed by Zook as for a reason why the district is out of compliance, Mitchell said, "We thought we were." She listed the resources the district used but also said that the district needed to start over.

Parent Lizbeth Huggins, who addressed the Education Board last week about the district's inadequate services, on Monday described how she had had fought for almost the entire length of her child's school career to obtain appropriate services -- even going so far as filing a complaint about the deficiencies with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. That complaint has not yet been resolved.

Only within the past year did her repeated demands for help result in a dyslexia diagnosis for her child and early morning, before-school assistance that has resulted in "amazing progress." That help came in part from Chandle Carpenter, she said.

Carpenter was promoted in December to the role of dyslexia specialist for the district.

Huggins said her family's story is not unique in the district and that the district is in a literacy crisis as evidenced by poor reading skills among high school students.

"All kids can learn to read -- black, brown, white, poor, wealthy -- we just have to do it in a way that their brains learn, using the science of reading," Huggins said.

Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore prepared a written response to the state Education Board on the dyslexia and special education audits' findings.

"We have work to do!" he wrote about the reports in general. He called the dyslexia findings "much more concerning," but he also noted the employment of Carpenter and the ongoing work with the Education Department to vet new literacy materials for kindergarten through fifth grades. He said the goal is to find materials that best incorporate the science of reading and will provide appropriate support for students with dyslexia.

Training teachers first in the elementary grades and expanding into the secondary grades on the science of reading is underway, he said.

"I think one of the key findings in the report is that LRSD is not reaching the target of properly identifying students who need support," Poore wrote. "This must be addressed, and it will. It is also clear that our support of dyslexic learners at the secondary level will need to be addressed with additional training, staffing allocations, and schedule development."

The dyslexia services audit was done by a team of 13 Education Department staff members and educational service cooperative specialists in late January.

The team found that 1,198 students -- more than 1,000 of them elementary children -- were flagged all of last school year for dyslexia intervention. The numbers dip dramatically after third grade. The number was 22 in the five high schools.

"The law requires dyslexia screening for students experiencing difficulty as noted by the classroom teacher," the report said. "The team did not find any evidence that procedures for teacher referrals for dyslexia screening were in place for the high school prior to the district hiring [Carpenter] as their dyslexia specialist."

Carpenter has since created a flowchart for screening students in grades three through 12.

When students are identified, there is no indication of how far behind the student is, the audit team said, and team members noted a lack of urgency in the district in attempting to provide services to the students.

There was also a finding that students receiving services are getting just the minimum intervention time. As for staff members, even those who are trained do not have time allocated in their daily work schedules to provide the interventions.

Among the concerns cited by the team was the finding that elementary schools are in "triage mode" and serve only the most needy.

Pupils who receive help and begin to show success are dismissed from services so that other identified students can be helped, the report also said.

Another problem found was delays in evaluations and interventions when early identification and help is seen as as a way to minimize the problems caused by dyslexia.

Smith, the state's assistant commissioner, said the next steps for the district in the aftermath of the dyslexia services audit include selecting a reading curriculum and making sure that screening tools and a process are in the hands of teachers for identifying students who need help.

"We also have to look at the schedules in the middle and high schools and identifying those students who need to start receiving services immediately and figuring out how to make that work, Smith said.

Smith was complimentary of the receptiveness of the faculties at the Little Rock schools. She described them as "thirsty" for knowledge."

A Section on 02/19/2019