This past year in the fall semester I hit the schools hard to force the students to apply.

We have been contacted by several member schools that already have enrolled students from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi displaced by the storm,

[Many Arkansas schools have seen an influx of students in the past two weeks after thousands of people were forced to flee the New Orleans and the Gulf Coast areas because of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The AAA has ruled that all evacuees from those areas transferring into Arkansas schools will be immediately eligible.] It’s about a page worth of paperwork, ... We want to make it as simple for them as possible. We just want to know who they are and where they are going to be.

The solution is to increase the student counselor ratio at the schools. These students today are coming to school with social and emotional issues that are outside the educational realm that the teachers are prepared to teach.

Schools like Grove City, Brigham Young, and Hillsdale are some of our more popular schools. Their students are usually of very high caliber.

We have two schools with high numbers of disadvantages students. Now, the state mandates a 22-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio in the classroom, but what we do right now is have a 19-to-1 student ratio from pre-kindergarten to third grade at those (economically disadvantaged) campuses. The third grade is when they start TAKS and reading. We want to make sure we have those kids prepared for their future. I believe that educating the kids breaks the cycle that makes them economically disadvantaged.