Catholic school parents will see changes in their child’s school calendar as the Diocese of Little Rock switches from counting days of instruction to hours.

The State of Arkansas requires students to attend at least 178 days or 1,068 hours of “on-site, in-person instruction.” The average school day is six hours or 30 hours a week.

According to the Pew Research Center in 2023, the national norm in the United States is 180 days. One state requires 160 days, while several states set their school calendars at 185 or 186 days.

With Catholic schools usually offering longer days, the school calendar will be at least 1,080 hours or 172 days for the 2024-2025 school year, said superintendent Theresa Hall

The Catholic Schools Office releases one school calendar in January for the coming school year that most schools follow, but schools are allowed to set their own calendar based on local needs with approval from the Catholic Schools Office. For example, cities with only a Catholic elementary school and no Catholic high school might coordinate their calendar with the local public schools.

“We wanted to include more than 1,068 hours. We took everybody’s calendars and looked at their start times and end times,” Hall said, adding that up to 40 minutes of recess daily and lunch are included in the 1,080 hours.

Hall said her office, in consultation with principals, chose to begin the school year around the same time, Aug. 14 but added a two-day fall break, following a day off for parent-teacher conferences. Students will be off Oct. 17-21. Hall said the fall break was recommended based on feedback from elementary school principals and teachers who felt a break was needed between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

Schools will also be closed for Easter Monday, April 21 in addition to Good Friday.

While public schools are eliminating virtual days, known as Alternative Methods of Instruction, Hall said AMI days are still available to Catholic schools for “emergencies,” including snow, ice and loss of electricity or water.

It’s been a year since the new voucher initiative known as Educational Freedom Accounts were introduced to Catholic school parents. Since then, schools have seen some positive and negative outcomes as a result of the state’s LEARNS Act. 

EFAs enable families to select the most suitable school for their children, regardless of their income level. Families can apply for EFAs from the state for tuition and fees up to $6,600 a student. 

When the LEARNS Act was enacted in March 2023, the EFAs applied to a limited set of students. This month, EFAs are available to more families, and in 2025 they will be available to all Arkansas families, regardless of their income. 

Positives

One of the positives in schools is higher teacher salaries, which were increased to remain competitive with the public school teacher minimum salary of $50,000 a year. 

Some schools also are seeing higher student enrollment. 

• Christ the King School in Fort Smith increased from 269 students in 2023 to 320 students. 

“(Their) kindergarten and first grade have each grown, but they also have a very strong (pre-kindergarten) program and have shown growth in other grades as well,” superintendent Theresa Hall said. 

• Immaculate Conception School in North Little Rock has seen enrollment increase from 386 to 409. 

“Growth in their (pre-kindergarten) program is part of that increase,” Hall said. 

• St. Joseph School in Conway has increased enrollment from 508 to 534, with Hall noting that the school has seen a big increase in pre-K4 and first-grade students, in addition to growth in other grades. 

• Enrollment at St. John School in Russellville has increased by roughly 13 students, which Hall notes “for a small school makes a difference.”

“We believe that we will see growth in many schools, especially in the 2025-2026 school year when EFAs become universal,” Hall said.

Jennifer Elder, principal of St. John School in Russellville, said the LEARNS Act has played a role in student recruitment. 

“LEARNS has been partially responsible for an increase in our enrollment,” Elder said. “We have had many families express their gratefulness in the program, because it makes affording a private school more manageable. …”

Hall said in schools that have more minority students, EFA vouchers have been the most helpful. 

Kristy Dunn, principal of St. Theresa School in southwest Little Rock, said the LEARNS Act is having a big impact on her school and the surrounding Hispanic community. 

“We had a 14-percent enrollment growth,” Dunn said. “… Last year, we had 40 students on the EFAs, and this year we know we have at least 80. It might hit 90,” Dunn said. 

Dunn said through her work and attendance of conferences with the Alliance for Catholic Education at the University of Notre Dame that she’s seen the data regarding costs and quality. 

“We like to say that if it was free, more people would choose us,” Dunn said. “… But that’s actually not true, because funding is not really our only obstacle … the data support that you’ve got to have the funding and a really good, mission-driven school, a real quality school.” 

Dunn has noticed this year, her faculty and staff are at full capacity, as opposed to last year’s shortage. 

Some schools like St. Joseph School in Fayetteville are at capacity and now have a waiting list. Principal Deacon Jason Pohlmeier said, “I have not seen any negative impacts from the LEARNS Act so far. Our school began a period of steady growth in 2020-21 from the moment we released our return-to-school plan for COVID. We have grown approximately 20 students each year since then and have reached our all-time highest enrollment. We have had more waiting lists in the past two years than we ever did in the past, but we do have space for a few more students in most grades.”

Parents say they are happy to have EFAs available to them. Daniela Delgadillo, who has two sons attending St. Theresa School, said the LEARNS Act has brought positives for her family.

“It’s been beneficial for both my children because … one of my boys has ADHD and my other one has dyslexia,” Delgadillo said. “So it was a great thing and it helped me out a lot since I’m currently not working.”

Delgadillo is glad her children have the opportunity to attend the same school she did. 

“I went to St. Theresa, myself and my family,” Delgadillo said. “So to me, it’s more like a family-oriented school. And I love that my kids can go and they go to school with (the children of) some of my old classmates.”

Negatives

One of the drawbacks to the EFAs is not all schools can accept more students.

“St. Joseph in Fayetteville and St. Vincent de Paul in Rogers … are at capacity or close to capacity at many grade levels,” Hall said. “Christ the King (School in) Little Rock and Our Lady of the Holy Souls (School in Little Rock) also are near capacity. It does not mean that they aren’t accepting new students. It means that many of their grades may be full or have limited space available.”

This presents unique problems for families that have more than one child. 

“When families apply that might have more than one child, there may be room for one of the children in their grade, but (for) the other child/children, there may not be room for them in their grade,” Hall said. 

Some schools have raised tuition to help account for the increase in teacher salaries.

“Some schools paid the salaries of support staff through EANS (Emergency Assistance for Non-Public Schools) funds — COVID-related funding that ends this September,” Hall said. “To keep the support staff added and still needed for positions such as interventionist (see related story, page 9), the schools now must build that into their budgets.”

Tuition also increased to help account for the cost of educating every child. 

“The cost to educate in many cases is more than the cost of tuition,” Hall said. “Schools relied heavily on church subsidies and fundraising. Following COVID, many churches have reduced or eliminated the amount of subsidy offered.”

The LEARNS Act has also put new strains on schools. 

“Although the LEARNS Act has had a positive financial impact on the families that have participated, it has not had a measurable impact on our enrollment,” said Matt Dempsey, principal of Catholic High School in Little Rock. “… On the other hand, it has significantly increased the demands on our office of financial administration. We have also been forced to add a standardized test to our testing regimen.”

Educators and parents have also cited concerns with the overlap between state educational policies and parochial institutions. 

“The major problem would always be that the funding would stop,” Pohlmeier said. “The legal challenges that arise cause this concern. So far, none of those major challenges have come to fruition, but if any ever did, it would be a major hurdle. Once families receive EFA funding, I expect they will stop budgeting for tuition. If the LEARNS Act went away and families had to return to paying out of their own pockets, it would be a rude awakening for everyone.”

Dempsey echoed concerns about maintaining separation from state requirements. 

“Catholic schools do an incredible job of developing and advancing their powerful missions,” Dempsey said. “My concern for the future is whether state-imposed requirements might be contrary to those missions. One great strength of our Catholic schools has always been their independence from bureaucracy.”

Elder expressed concerns about maintaining a quality education in parochial schools. 

“My concern is always about maintaining the quality of education that we have worked over 100 years to provide at St. John’s,” Elder said. “We want to increase enrollment and extend the benefits that LEARNS provides but still have smaller class sizes and good teacher to student ratios. We want our St. John’s families to know that their student’s educational experience is always the top priority.”

Hall said the discontinuation of EFAs through a lawsuit seems unlikely.

“It is possible that a challenge to the LEARNS Act could happen,” she said. “It seems unlikely that the EFAs would be taken away given the success of school choice legislation across the country. However, schools need to address the discrepancy between tuition and the cost to educate, raising teacher salaries and having staffing to accommodate students with special needs. All this is needed with or without the EFAs.”

The 2024-2025 calendar for Catholic schools in Arkansas was released by the Office of Catholic Schools.

• Aug. 14: First day of school

• Sept. 4: Labor Day, school closed*

• Sept. 27: Professional Day for teachers, school closed*

• Oct. 18-21: Fall break

• Nov. 25-29: Thanksgiving break, school closed

• Dec. 23-Jan. 3: Christmas break, school closed

• Jan. 20: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, school closed*

• Feb. 17: Presidents Day, school closed*

• March 24-28: Spring break, school closed*

• April 18: Good Friday, school closed*

• April 21: Easter Monday, school closed*

• May 22: Last day of school

The calendar includes no snow days. Dates marked with an asterisk (*) apply to all Catholic schools in Arkansas. The first and last days of school and fall, Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks may vary across the state.

The Catholic schools in the Diocese of Little Rock admit students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. The Catholic schools in the Diocese of Little Rock do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs and athletic and other school administered programs. 

While the school does not discriminate against students with special needs, a full range of services may not be available to them. Decisions concerning the admission and continued enrollment of a student in the school are based upon the student’s emotional, academic and physical abilities, and the resources available to the school in meeting the student’s needs.

What is the most common thing teenagers do outside of school? The answer is using their smartphones. They look at them while driving, at events, on vacations, at dinner, and before, after, and sadly, even during church. Wherever kids go, looking at screens inevitably follows. 

In his bestselling book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” Jonathan Haidt argues children’s constant use of smartphones is causing a mental health crisis — one that can be avoided. 

Mental illness cases including depression, loneliness and suicide are growing, and Haidt argues the cause is moving away from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood which has rewired childhood completely. 

Smartphones and social media have damaged the foundations of a healthy childhood through social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction. Worst of all, the phone-based life produces spiritual degradation, and living in virtual networks rather than personal communities prevents people from thriving because as you immerse yourself in apps, the more isolated you become.

Haidt calls for four new norms to reverse these trends: 

• no smartphones before high school

• no social media before turning 16

• phone-free schools 

• more free play, responsibility and independence in the real world for children 

Reducing smartphone usage, especially during school, seems completely obvious. Catholic High has never allowed students to have their phones, and head of school Steve Straessle called it the most intuitive decision of the past 25 years. Amber Bagby, principal of Our Lady of the Holy Souls School, said students having their phones during school “would be an absolute nightmare.” Other school districts are making similar bans, including one in Los Angeles with half a million students. 

Governors are calling for laws to keep phones out of schools, and the U.S. surgeon general is calling for warning labels on social media apps. Haidt shows evidence that when phones are banned, students feel better, focus more, make better grades and forge stronger friendships with their peers. 

The hardest norm for parents, including me, to follow is giving more free-range to children. Parents have been bombarded with fears of terrible things happening to them and their children for the past three decades, including going to jail for child neglect for simply allowing children to play at neighborhood parks by themselves. This has led to overprotecting children which prevents the development of self-reliance and personal independence. 

Parent-guided play has also become a way to protect children from getting hurt, physically or emotionally. Teachers and principals report that parents will demand that all recess activities be structured by teachers so that no one is picked last and everyone gets a turn for fear of hurt feelings. We all want our children to be safe, but Haidt argues that overprotection is preventing growth into adulthood. 

Haidt uses an analogy with this lack of resilience and the failure of biospheres. Trees fall over in biospheres because they need wind to grow strong. Trees develop “stress wood” which enables them to sustain greater wind storms, and inevitably, live longer. 

“Children need to experience frequent stressors in order to become strong adults,” he writes. Doing so creates “antifragile” children. Haidt argues we have it backward: we have overprotected children in the real world but underprotected them in the virtual world.

Haidt presents a universal rationale with evidence that shows a clear path forward yet makes you wonder how we arrived at this point. Teachers, parents and grandparents should read “The Anxious Generation” and implement these norms. Haidt believes the mental health crisis can change within two years, but it starts with adults being strong enough to say, “Turn off the screen, and go play outside.”

Steve Aday is the assistant principal at Catholic High School in Little Rock, where he also teaches English and religion.

Place your hands upon the head or shoulder of your child. Ask for the Holy Spirit to guide her/him and pray aloud:

O Lord, you blessed us with the gift of our daughter/son, (your child’s name). And now you have brought us to this moment of our lives when the hours will separate us as this new chapter begins for her/him.

Protect her/him Lord from all physical, emotional and spiritual harm.

Help her/him to make wise and prudent decisions in her/his academic and social life. 

Help her/him find joy each day in the little things and overcome disappointment quickly.

Inspire her/him to be diligent in her/his studies but avoid trying to be perfect; to grow in virtue and reject vice; to forgive him/herself when she/he makes a mistake and to seek forgiveness from you and others if she/he offends. 

Above all, Lord, help her/him to grow in her/his love for you, her/his truest friend.

May she/he see you in the people she/he learns with and in the community that surrounds her/him. Keep our love for each other strong over this semester.

Hold her/him Lord in the palm of your hand. 

Modified from the Catholic University of America blessing for students on their first day of college. 

Following the passage of the LEARNS Act, many former public school students are exploring enrolling in Catholic schools.

As many of these students join parochial schools, academic interventionists are working hard to catch these students up from learning delays during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare them for the rigors of Catholic education. 

“Each student has different academic needs, and for those that might struggle, an interventionist can meet those students where they are and support and guide them to their fullest potential,” said Theresa Hall, superintendent of Catholic schools. 

“Interventionists in our Catholic schools are key to meeting the diverse learning needs of our students,” said Marguerite Olberts, associate superintendent for marketing. “As our schools gain new students due to the Education Freedom Accounts as part of the LEARNS Act, we anticipate the need for more interventionist in Catholic schools throughout the state.”

Interventionists in Catholic schools said they are ready to meet the challenges these students face.

Melissa Griggs, a full-time reading interventionist at St. Joseph School in Fayetteville, is a former public school teacher who decided to become a reading interventionist at the elementary school where she was working in the early 2000s and fell in love with it immediately.   

“I loved the impact I was able to make by working with small groups of students,” she said. “I feel like students learn best in a small group setting.”

Griggs said the pandemic highlighted the need for interventionists in education. 

“Interventionists have always been needed in all schools, both private and public,” she said. “I think the increased need for interventionists began after COVID due to kids missing so much school.”

Griggs predominantly helps students with reading and phonics in kindergarten through sixth grade. She said the beginning of the school year always presents the most challenges. 

“We have to test, identify, group and then schedule the students who will be working with us during the year,” she said. “This process takes at least two-three weeks. Scheduling a time period to pull students from their classrooms is also very challenging, especially when several teachers request the same time. We have to consider everyone’s daily schedule to find a suitable time that works.”

Griggs works with former teacher Toni Been, who became a reading interventionist in 2020 as schools scrambled to navigate the pandemic and support students. 

“I was hired with EANS (Emergency Assistance for Non-Public Schools) funds to assist our full-time interventionist,” Been said. “When students needed direct, explicit reading and phonics instruction, Zoom, although better than nothing, wasn’t the most effective teaching method for most kids. Many students fell behind, especially emergent readers. Some kids needed a boost to get back on track…”

In addition to teaching reading and phonics to students in kindergarten through eighth grade, Been also teaches math to a handful of students who need extra support. 

“There are various reasons students find these subjects challenging. Reading is a process, and students progress at different rates,” she said. “Students with learning disabilities and developmental delays, as well as ELL (English Language Learner) students, might need extra support.”

She added, “Since the LEARNS Act has been implemented, we are seeing more students with diverse and complex learning needs. My challenge is to meet the needs of my students the best I can.”

At Catholic High School in Little Rock, Kim Dodge became an interventionist when she saw the impact of learning disabilities in her own children. 

“I worked for eight years as a physical therapist in a pediatric clinic before realizing in 2012 that my own boys struggled with dyslexia, and the schools were not identifying or servicing them,” she said.

Dodge is now training to become a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT), which is the highest level of dyslexia practitioner in Arkansas. 

“Every school needs to have two to three CALTs if they want to see a jump in reading scores,” she said.

Dodge said the LEARNS Act and the Right to Read Law opened up opportunities for interventionists while raising awareness of the need for them. 

“Students who struggle to read must be identified early, and teachers must be highly trained to teach the code of reading,” she said. “Arkansas’ NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) reading scores are dismal, with only 26 percent of our students testing as proficient on grade level in reading. This is not just a problem related to reading disabilities. Our schools need intense systemic change.”

Dodge said teachers need more training to identify reading problems in order to begin remediating issues at lower grade levels.

“I believe parochial schools have a duty to rise to this challenge, and there is help available,” she said. “There are programs like BUILD that would enhance kindergarten through third-grade general classroom instruction, and CALTs could service more severe reading difficulties outside the classroom.”

Dodge primarily helps dyslexic students at Catholic High, as the repercussions of the learning disorder can be seen in all school subjects. 

“Because reading impacts all subjects, including math, all subjects can present a challenge to someone with dyslexia,” Dodge said. “Higher-level textbook reading and expository writing are extremely difficult if one hasn’t even mastered the basics.”

Students are tackling these challenges while also struggling with other issues common among Generation Z. 

“We are facing an uphill battle with some students ill prepared in basic reading skills. However we are also seeing device addiction, attention fragmentation, more absenteeism, anxiety, depression and apathy,” Dodge said. “Parochial schools can offer a ray of hope. We can provide the unconditional love of Christ. We are fighting to teach our kids about the dangers of a technology-obsessed culture. We can offer a soft landing place that feels like home while also providing the highest level of academic challenge.”

Mallory Manion is her sixth year as a elementary-level reading interventionist at St. Joseph School in Conway. Like Dodge, Manion supports students in reading, spelling and writing, while working to identify and manage dyslexia. 

“Approximately 20 percent of people are dyslexic,” she said. “This means that certain areas of the brain do not process language in the same way and may have deficits in reading and spelling. One in five students automatically need intervention targeted to their areas of growth. That does not also include students with other learning differences or students that may just need a little extra boost.” 

Manion said the greatest challenge she faces as the only interventionist for nine classrooms is finding space and time. 

“I have a maximum of 28 spots, and that is already under 20 percent of our school population,” she said. “Therefore, I know I am missing kids that need support, but there isn’t anything I can do about it. It is very difficult to accept that, but there aren’t enough resources to hire a second interventionist.”

Just prior to the passing of the LEARNS Act, some of the Catholic schools struggled with student enrollment numbers and with being able to provide scholarship support for the families that qualified for financial assistance. 

The Office of Catholic Schools spent time exploring what it could look like if the act passed. It was both exciting and a little scary at the same time. We needed to be ready to capitalize on the opportunities that the LEARNS Act might bring.

A strategic plan was needed. A strategic plan is a document that summarizes goals and action plans for an organization based on its mission and vision. It is developed by stakeholders that are invested in the success of the organization. It is a live document that might need revisions, modifications and/or additions based on the success of the plan.

With funding from the Walmart Foundation, a team from Bellwether Education Partners was in place to assist the Office of Catholic Schools with creating a strategic plan. 

They began by investigating the current responsibilities and the services that the Office of Catholic Schools provides for the 26 schools in our diocese.  Then a steering committee was formed representing both large and small schools, pastors and school boards throughout the state. The committee spearheaded the planning process by submitting names that were key stakeholders, both past and present. The Bellwether team interviewed the stakeholders, surveyed the school principals, and visited six schools throughout the state. 

With the responses and data received, Bellwether created a summary of strengths including:

• Schools’ strong academic reputation

• Families, staff and alumni valued Catholic identity

• Religious formation and character development appeal to both Catholic and non-Catholic families

• Families value schools’ culture of kindness and focus on safety

• Strong alumni, parent, and staff communities

The needs or improvements desired summary from Bellwether included:

• Schools not having access to forecast enrollment based on changing demographic data

• Assistance needed to inform families of the Educational Freedom Account (EFAs) from the LEARNS Act

• Teacher recruitment and retention

• Goal-setting and monitoring curriculum and assessments

• Staff professional development 

With the assistance of the steering committee and utilizing the needs and improvements list, the following five impact goals were created.

1. Help schools set appropriate annual enrollment goals and determine the criteria they will use to determine how fast to grow

2. Identify and invest in public messaging, cross-parish communication and outreach to new populations of Catholic students

3. Build schools’ talent networks and help schools pool and coordinate recruitment and teacher professional development efforts

4. Codify and share rigorous standards for the shared curriculum and tracking performance on assessments

5. Invest in staff professional development, data analysis systems and communities of practice

Bellwether and the Catholic Schools Office continued to meet by Zoom every week to establish the action plans, a timeline, who would be responsible for the actions and how to gauge the achievement of the goals.  

With the strategic plan in place, the school’s office has begun with its mission in mind to continue to provide direction, services, and leadership to the schools in our diocese.