Little Rock’s Hall High School, which now encompasses the West High School of Innovation, will likely avoid closure, but will return in a vastly different form than what it is now.
The Little Rock School District has said it will look into converting the Midtown school into a public charter school. This will mark yet another change for Hall, which became Hall STEAM Magnet High School in 2020 after Little Rock’s Southwest High School took over Hall’s attendance boundary.
A new public high school, Pinnacle View, is under construction next to the campus of Pinnacle View Middle School and West High School of Innovation.
LRSD officials and school board members have had numerous discussions about what should be done with Hall and its declining enrollment, with the closure of the school being an early option.
A proposal to re-imagine the school as a hub for nontraditional education and virtual learning recently ran out of steam due to concerns about whether the school could get accreditation from the state Department of Education.
Hall would need approval from the LRSD Board of Education to make the transition to a charter school, with final approval needing to come from the state Board of Education.
As a converted public charter school, Hall would still be able to operate under the umbrella of the LRSD, and while enrollment would be open, it would only be able to draw upon students within district boundaries.
Less than 250 students currently attend Hall, causing the LRSD’s per-student cost at the school to skyrocket to beyond double what is invested in the district’s other schools.
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