As the All Children's Academy gears up for the new school year this month, students and teachers will now have the convenience of additional room and a centralized location at their new facility on the Cutter Morning Star campus on Spring Street.
"We were in the building on Lakeside Road and then we just -- we grew out of it way too fast," ACA Program Director Whitney Ritter said.
The nonprofit academy, which accepts students from all seven districts in Garland County, started out with 15 students last year before growth ultimately forced them to look for a larger facility, she said, noting they are leasing the historic Cutter building, which has seven classrooms and playground equipment and they are adding landscaping features and outdoor classroom areas.
She said she's excited to be in a central location where the school can continue to grow and fit students over the next few years as they concentrate on building ACA's high school program. The academy, which currently accepts students in grades K-6, has over 30 students registered and, as of last week, still has spots open.
The academy has a 10 to 1 student/teacher ratio and the teachers, all certified, use an individualized curriculum approach with the models and materials addressing "all six domains of health and wellness: social, emotional, environmental, intellectual, physical and spiritual."
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Cutter Morning Star District Superintendent Nancy Anderson expressed her excitement about the partnership and said she believes it will benefit both institutions.
"We are excited to partner with New Hope Therapy ACA to meet the needs of all students," she said. "Our partnership will allow more opportunities for those students who might have difficulty in the traditional classroom setting."
Ritter noted the significance of the academy's new centralized location and how it will impact its overall growth.
"That was another reason why this is a good choice -- because we're right here by Hot Springs School District, Fountain Lake School District, and especially once the bypass gets finished, you know, it'll be very easy to get to the village and Jessieville and all of those places," she said. "And we're right next, I mean, we're basically in Lakeside School District; one side of the road is and one side isn't -- so it's a convenient location."
As enrollment numbers and interest started to peak this past school year, Ritter said Anderson contacted ACA board member Chris Meseke and offered the building.
"It was just going to sit here open, and it was being used for storage at the time," Ritter said. "And so, we're like, 'Chris, we just moved.' Like, 'Should we really do this?' you know. And so (ACA Executive Director) Nicki Sessions and I, we went and we spoke with Dr. Anderson."
Ritter said that by being on campus, Anderson approves the curriculum while ACA's teachers deliver it. By doing that, she said, they are able to lease the building but also have access to the school's security officer and maintenance contracts.
"And it just doesn't make sense to continue to try to do everything on your own and constantly reinvent the wheel when you could just work together with someone else," she said. "And then the kids win -- and not just the kids that we have here -- but now all of these kids in Cutter district, they get a little boost too because the state funding for the kids -- it stays in Cutter School District."
Ritter said the idea of a public school partnership is not something new to the academy's model.
"Because we do not want to be a traditional private school that is ANSAA (Arkansas Nonpublic School Accrediting Association) certified and kind of anti-public school," she said. "I think the right thing to do is to support public school because public school -- they take care of all, you know. They don't get the option to turn anyone away or if a child's not a good fit -- like, it doesn't matter how that child comes in that day, they're taking care of everyone and that's where the money in the community belongs. And so I love that instead of going the private school route, we kind of are creating a new model where we're a nonprofit and we're teamed up with public schools."
ACA, teamed up with Lakeside School District last year, was able to keep $100,000 in the district, she said.
"And we enrolled our students as virtual," she said. "They were the folder holders and they approved our curriculum and our teachers and our kids even went across the street. We walked over there to do their standardized testing because that's something that's also important to me is, families are investing a great deal of money into our -- you know, believing in us -- and I want to make sure that what they're getting based on what, like -- they need to be able to compare apples to apples.
"We need to be held to the same standards as the public school. So that all being said, we had been with Lakeside and it's just a larger school district and so Dr. Anderson, when she was ready to partner with us and we were talking about the building, it was just -- the things that we get by renting this building were so much greater than what we would get, or what we had, at Lakeside," she said.
As ACA prepares for the first day of school on Aug. 16 and continues building its younger student base, the focus is shifting to the future.
"Some of these parents have third-, or fourth-, or fifth-graders -- they're apprehensive to make the switch because they're scared that they can make the switch, and then we're not able to offer high school," she said. "But that's the focus right now is to develop the high school program. And, you know, our kids are in the program and so we want a place for them to go to high school and we want it to be strong."
