Little Rock Superintendent Jermall Wright and his staff are recommending a slate of money-saving campus changes for the 2025-26 school year that include discontinuing the use of Brady and Carver Magnet elementaries as traditional prekindergarten-through-fifth grade campuses.

The district's School Board will consider the proposals at its meeting 5:30 p.m. Nov. 21. The school proposals are contained in the board's agenda -- posted online Friday -- for that meeting.

"The landscape of public education in the nation and in Arkansas is rapidly changing, district leaders wrote in the presentation to the School Board.

The district's ongoing #OptimizingLRSD campaign "is the process we are undertaking to make the district as perfect, effective, efficient, and functional as possible to respond to this changing landscape," they also wrote. "Operation #Optimizing LRSD is all about improving what we offer and how we offer it to meet the needs of families and communities in central Arkansas."

If the Carver and Brady buildings are ultimately closed as traditional schools, they will join a list of recently closed traditional campuses that include Booker, Meadowcliff, David O. Dodd and Baseline elementaries, as well as Cloverdale and Henderson middle schools.

Additionally, the district transitioned Romine Elementary into a campus-wide early childhood program. The district also closed McClellan High and made J.A. Fair High a kindergarten-through-eighth grade school when it built and opened Southwest High.

The proposals for the board to consider in the coming days call for Carver 2100 E. Sixth St., to relocate -- but not close -- and consolidate with Washington Elementary, 2700 South Main St., to become Carver-Washington STEAM Magnet Elementary School.

The reconfigured school would retain Carver's state-issued local education agency number, making it the surviving school in district and state records. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art and math.

The current Carver building would be used for some special education personnel as well as for expanding the district's day treatment program for kindergartners through eight grades. The Carver campus would also be used as an alternative learning environment for those students who are not successful in their traditional classrooms, according to the proposal.

Washington is one of the district's most underused schools at 35% of its 900-student capacity. The cost per student to operate the school is $12,979. Carver is at 37% of its 634-student capacity. The cost per student to operate the school is $16,886 according to the district's presentation.

Wright had in recent weeks tried to prepare School Board members for the forthcoming proposals to close campuses as a way to trim expenses.

To that end, earlier this month Wright reported to the board that the district had experienced a $25 million decrease in the past 10 years in state foundation aid and a $12 million decrease in his 2 1/2 years as superintendent. That's a change from $63.9 million to $238,479

Other components of the proposal call for:

Closing Brady Elementary, 7915 W. Markham St., and assigning students in the Brady attendance zone to six different schools: McDermott, Pulaski Heights Elementary, Jefferson, Forest Park, J.A. Fair and Stephens elementaries.Brady could be reconfigured into a parent center for the district that would house student registration, early childhood education and other offices that support the district's schools.

Redesigning the Dunbar Magnet Middle Magnet School program that once focused on international studies and gifted education to a new magnet or specialty themes of entrepreneurship and leadership. Dunbar is at 42% of its 750 student capacity. Dunbar, as well as Carver, are recent recipients of multi-million federal grants to develop magnet or speciality programs.

Increasing the number of pre-kindergarten seats in the district -- by expanding the Fair Park early childhood program into a part of Hall High School building and opening the former Baseline Elementary, 3623 Baseline Road, into a schoolwide early childhood education center.

Possibly adding elementary bilingual programs in Spanish at some district campuses such as the now vacant Baseline for kindergarten-through- second graders, and three- through-fifth graders at Watson, and also a program at Terry Elementary. The purpose of the bilingual programs would be to attract both new, non-Spanish speaking students and Spanish-speaking students to the district.

Wright and his staff listed for the board the factors that contributed to the proposals. Those included the reduction in state funding as well as in federal funding, a decline in student enrollment, conditions of the different campuses, per pupil costs in the schools and expansion of charter and private school access, leading to greater competition for students.

The proposal for campuses would have an impact on staffing district leaders acknowledged and recommended that all staff must be recommended for jobs in 2025-26 as required by the LEARNS Act or Act 237 of 2023. The act requires effectiveness of a teacher to be considered over years of experience in hiring decisions, the district presentation states.

"There will be a process and a time period dedicated for all current LRSD employees to indicate their intent to return for the 2025-26 school year and to indicate positions they wish to be considered for -- before they are recommended for employment for the 2025-26 school year.

"Our goal is to complete the above referenced process for current LRSD employees by February/March of 2025. No external applicants will be considered for vacant positions in LRSD until after this process for current employees is completed," the report to the board said.