Arkansas Democrat-Gazette - “Helena charter school gets principal; KIPP program to be city’s 2nd; new chief once taught in district” By Cynthia Howell Luke VanDeWalle, a math teacher at the Knowledge Is Power Program: Delta College Preparatory School in Helena-West Helena for the past three years, has been named principal of the city’s second KIPP charter school, Delta College Preparatory High, that he will open next month. VanDeWalle’s appointment was announced by the national KIPP charter school organization based in San Francisco. He is currently one of 13 “Fisher Fellows” enrolled in the principal training program for KIPP schools at Stanford University. A spokesman for the KIPP charter school’s national office said VanDeWalle was unavailable for comment because he was in class at the training program Wednesday. A native of Port Byron, Ill., VanDeWalle earned a bachelor’s degree in religion, communications and political science at Purdue University. Before teaching eighth and ninth grade algebra and geometry at Delta College Preparatory charter school, VanDeWalle was a Teach for America corps member assigned to Eliza Miller Jr. High in the Helena-West Helena School District where he taught for two years. The new charter high school will serve Delta College Prep students who are moving into ninth and 10th grades this year. The 11th and 12th grades will be added in subsequent years. The school will serve 75 students this year and will eventually grow to about 300, said Abby Leachman, Delta’s development director. The high school classes will be taught in the renovated train station that is across Cherry Street from the existing Delta College Preparatory School building that houses grades five through eight. The train station building was the original site for the middle school that was first opened in 2002 by its founding principal, Scott Shirey. “We are excited to open a second KIPP school in Helena,” Shirey said Wednesday about VanDeWalle’s appointment. “This is the first step to ensure that more students in the Delta are climbing the mountain to college.” Nationally there are 57 KIPP schools in 17 states and Washington, D.C., only five of which are high schools. The first KIPP school was opened in 1994 in Houston by two former Teach for America teachers who targeted children from low-income families. The KIPP school model features school days that go from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday and every other Saturday, and includes three weeks of school in the summer. The Delta College Preparatory School is considered one of Arkansas’ most successful charter schools in terms of academics, outperforming the surrounding Helena-West Helena School District on state exams this past spring and bettering the state averages in most cases. Ninety-three percent of the Delta College Prep students scored at proficient or better on the state’s End-of-Course Exam in algebra as did 95 percent of the Delta College Prep students on the state geometry test. Shirey said that in addition to a high school there is aggressive planning for the development of a KIPP elementary school in the Helena-West Helena area and the replication of the KIPP schools in Helena-West Helena schools in communities throughout the Mississippi River Delta region in eastern Arkansas. The Arkansas Board of Education in April approved the expansion of the existing KIPP: Delta College Preparatory charter to accommodate the high school plans. The schools will operate under one charter and under the direction of the same board of directors. Charter schools are taxpayer-supported public schools that are operated according to the terms of a charter or contract with the state. The schools are eligible for waivers from some state laws and rules that govern traditional public schools. In return for that flexibility, the schools are held responsible for student achievement rates.
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