2015 Arkansas Code
Title 6 - Education
Subtitle 2 - Elementary And Secondary Education Generally
Chapter 21 - School Property And Supplies
Subchapter 8 - Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities Program Act
§ 6-21-802 - Intent.

(a) The General Assembly recognizes that:

(1) Intelligence and virtue are the safeguards of liberty and the bulwarks of a free and good government; and

(2) Arkansas Constitution, Article 14, § 1, requires the state to ever maintain a general, suitable, and efficient system of free public schools and to adopt all suitable means to secure the advantages and opportunities of education to the people of the State of Arkansas.

(b) The General Assembly finds that because of the opinions of the Supreme Court in the matter of Lake View School District No. 25 vs. Huckabee, it is the absolute duty of the State of Arkansas to provide all public school children with an opportunity for an adequate education, which includes access to adequate academic facilities and equipment.

(c) The General Assembly finds that in order to satisfy the constitutional expectations of the Supreme Court, the state should:

(1) Provide constitutionally appropriate public school academic facilities for the education of each similarly situated child in the public schools of Arkansas, regardless of where that child resides within the state;

(2) Require all public school academic facilities to meet applicable facilities standards established in this subchapter and rules adopted by the Commission for Arkansas Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation;

(3) Provide that all public school students are educated in facilities that are suitable for teaching in accordance with:

(A) Standards for accreditation adopted by the State Board of Education;

(B) Curriculum frameworks adopted by the state board; and

(C) Technology systems, instructional materials, and related academic equipment necessary to provide the adequate education explicated in subdivisions (c)(3)(A) and (B) of this section; and

(4) Require school districts to conserve and protect their academic facilities in such a manner that the academic facilities remain adequate.

(d) It is the intent of this subchapter to provide a system of state oversight of public school academic facilities so that school districts have academic facilities that support the opportunity for each public school student in the State of Arkansas to have an adequate education.