An elegy for Carver Magnet Elementary

“Carver occupies a curious place in this city’s long narrative on public education. Historically, it served Black students as a neighborhood school in Little Rock’s East End, the area between downtown and the Little Rock airport. In the late ’80s, it was designated a magnet school in an effort to help the district achieve its long-sought desegregation goals. Helmed by an inspired Black woman who herself attended the school in the ’60s, flooded with resources and relocated to a new building, Carver became the envy of the district — with a ballooning waitlist to boot.

“Now it is gone. Carver closed at the end of the 2024-25 school year, the remnants of the once venerated program consolidated with Booker T. Washington Magnet School to become Carver-Washington STEAM Magnet School.”