Fayetteville Catholic aims to build top charter school

Schoppmeyer builds Haas Hall Academy into best public high school in Arkansas

Published: March 11, 2014

By Alesia Schaefer
Rogers Correspondent

Alesia Schaefer

Dr. Martin Schoppmeyer, founder and superintendent of Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville, has no plans to rest on his laurels. His aim is to make HHA the top-performing public high school in the nation.

Alesia Schaefer

FAYETTEVILLE — From its humble beginnings in a dairy barn, Haas Hall Academy in Fayetteville has been the Cinderella story on the educational scene and the name that is synonymous with the academy and its success is Dr. Martin W. Schoppmeyer Jr.

He is the founder and superintendent of the state’s only science and math open-enrollment, public charter school for eighth to 12th graders. What began as a few drafty classrooms in a barn with a mere 17 students back in 2004 has blossomed into a college-preparatory, national award-winning high school.

Fast forward 10 years and HHA debuted at number 83 on Newsweek’s list of 27,468 public high schools in the nation. These days HHA continues to garner distinctions that place the school apart from the negative stereotype of public education.

Front and center in this campaign is the man poised to catapult this modest school of 320 students to the stratosphere of top performing high school in the nation. Schoppmeyer sets his goals high and the goals of his students, or as he fondly calls them, scholars, even higher. Already HHA has laid claim to the title as the No. 1 public high school in the state for the past two years by U.S. News and World Report.

“Haas Hall is about creating an academic institution that values the student and prepares each scholar every day to go to college,” said Schoppmeyer, 47, who personally wrote the charter for the school 10 years ago. “Most come here for the accelerated, challenging academic environment. It is also smaller so that students feel like more than a number.”

A parishioner at St. Joseph Church in Fayetteville, Schoppmeyer attributes much of his educational philosophy to the traditional Catholic education he experienced as a student. After attending junior high at a public school in Fayetteville, he decided to attend boarding school at Subiaco Academy.

“I went there for the quality of education,” he said. “That was the first time I felt like someone took an interest in me as a scholar. There was accountability and I was blessed to be in an academic environment that was challenging, caring and safe. I took those tenets with me when I designed Haas Hall Academy.”

That sense of feeling connected and being part of a community that Schoppmeyer felt at Subiaco is exactly the vibe he wanted at HHA. Besides being superintendent, Schoppmeyer is a faculty member, teaching computer applications to upperclassmen and making a point to interact with students at lunch each day.

Upon graduating from Subiaco, he chose St. Gregory University in Shawnee, Okla., where he met his wife, Carin. He spent his junior year at Rockhurst University, a Jesuit college in Kansas City, Kan., and then transferred to the University of Arkansas to graduate. The son of a UA professor, Schoppmeyer graduated with a doctorate in education from UA and saw a need for something more in education.

The enthusiasm Schoppmeyer exudes for education is infectious, said Stacy Keenan, St. Joseph parishioner and secretary of the school board. Keenan, now director of advancement for Haas Hall, met Schoppmeyer four years ago when she went in to learn more about HHA. She believes he is a man of vision.

“He is always looking forward and planning for the future,” she said. “He has strong opinions about what’s right and what’s wrong with education and wants to do what he can to improve the learning environment for our young people. He also has a strong connection with his family, and I know he wants to make his parents proud and his strong faith can be seen daily in the time and resources he puts into his scholars.”

Two of the three Keenan children attend St. Joseph School and one is currently homeschooled, but all three are on the waiting list for HHA, a waiting list of thousands who have pre-enrolled through 2027.

“My husband James and I both believe that the values taught at St. Joseph are as important as the education provided there and I see similar values at Haas Hall Academy even though it is a public charter school,” she said. “Dr. Schoppmeyer has created an atmosphere of inclusion, acceptance and respect. Those values, along with a strong academic education, will serve these young leaders well as they enter into the adulthood.”

“He is an educational entrepreneur,” Cindy Lester, president of the parent faculty council at HHA, said. “There is something so different about this school, and it is all because of this one man. He is an educational innovator, who knows what works and what doesn’t.”

Currently, Schoppmeyer divides his time between superintendent of Haas Hall and being an Fayetteville city council member. He also serves as a secretary/treasurer for the executive committee of the Washington County Regional Ambulance Authority and was recently appointed to the Commission for the Coordination of Educational Efforts to help recommend policies related to improving coordination among the levels of education from pre-kindergarten to the graduate level.