Good day, CharterFolk.
Today we are happy to present a Contributor Column from Tina Long, the Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer at Exalt Education in Little Rock, Arkansas.
We provide a bio for Tina below.
Tina Long is Exalt Education’s Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer. In her capacity, she supervises principals and academic leaders while overseeing all major functions of running a school, including the implementation of the academic model, compliance, operations, and finance. Ms. Long is a passionate educator and advocate for all children.
Prior to joining Exalt Education, Ms. Long served as a School Administrator for Arthur Academies, one of the highest-performing charter school networks located in the Pacific Northwest. In 2010, Ms. Long co-founded Knova Learning, a public charter school in Portland, Oregon. She served as the school’s principal for two years before relocating to Arkansas to serve as Director of Academic Programs for Exalt Education and work directly with Little Rock Preparatory Academy. In 2012, Tina started to lead Exalt Academy of Southwest Little Rock as the Founding Principal.
Mrs. Long graduated with a BS in Psychology from Portland State University and a Master’s Degree in Education from Warner Pacific University.
As We Say at Exalt: Here We Grow!
Exalt Academy in southwest Little Rock, Arkansas is an independent charter school in more ways than one. Beyond not being part of a larger network, Exalt goes against the grain in multiple respects:
- We’re the only charter school in Arkansas with a gifted and talented program across K-8.
- We serve the highest percentage of English learners in the state.
- And our enrollment has increased every single year since we opened in 2014.
Our unique make-up – and the fact that we primarily place students by performance, not by age – is getting results. We consistently score among the top 20 middle schools statewide for academic growth.
Here’s how. Let’s start with who we served in 2024-25:
And here’s how we’ve grown over time, including throughout the pandemic:
As we’ve grown our school, we’ve also increased our academic performance. Students’ performance on the NWEA’s MAP assessment has increased steadily, notwithstanding a dip for the pandemic. Most recently, reading growth rose from 50% in 2023-24 to 61% in 2024-25, and math growth increased from 45% to 62% in the same period. These year-over-year gains represent our highest levels of growth in recent years and earned Exalt the designation from NWEA as an exemplary school for over 60% of our students meeting their goals.
At Exalt, we’re all about growth, and that starts with knowing each student well. We assess each student after they enroll, and we place the students with peers who are at a similar level, subject-by-subject. For example, a 10-year-old student who joins us won’t automatically be enrolled in the fourth grade. If that 10-year-old is an exceptional reader but struggling with math, he may do English language arts with 11- and 12-year-olds and math with 9-year-olds.
In our experience, placing students at or slightly above their current ability level supports their growth and reduces behavioral problems. Toward that end, we have far fewer out-of-school suspensions and expulsions than our surrounding public schools.
Our approach is working. In 2024-25, Exalt ranked in the top 20 middle schools in Arkansas based on overall growth on the state test and in the top 10 middle schools statewide for math growth.
In addition, we have exceeded the state’s average growth score on ESSA for each of the last seven years.
Looking ahead, we’re continuing to grow. Our enrollment this school year is much higher – we’re hovering around 1,100 students. The surge in students is largely due to us adding 9-12 grades suddenly last spring. For years, our families had asked us to add high school grades, and we were in the midst of planning to expand when a nearby charter high school nearly lost its status to operate and the state asked us to merge. In a matter of days, we added four grades, over a dozen new staff members, and nearly 150 students.
While there were concerns that the change would result in students leaving for other options, we were able to dramatically increase enrollment. High school enrollment for this year is 256, and we’ve grown our K-8 to the most students we’ve ever served: 854. All of this growth – and our plans to add pre-K in 2026-27 – led us to buy a nearby building that formerly housed a traditional district school. We expect to open that renovated building in 2026 and to continue to grow from there.
As we say at Exalt, here we grow!
