Murray, UT:  February 8, 2021—In late December 2020, the Family Life Academy Charter School (FLACS) network of the Bronx closed on the largest tax-exempt bond for a charter school operator in New York City’s history. Proceeds from the $126.4 million transaction refinanced two of the operator’s campuses (FLACS 3 and FLACS 2B) and will fund the development of FLACS’ fourth campus (FLACS 4).

Highmark School Development (Highmark) of Utah is the developer of the project. D.A. Davidson & Co. (DADCO) served as the underwriter. BuildNYC was the conduit issuer. Highmark worked closely with DADCO, leadership at FLACS, and the issuer to structure this unprecedented bond transaction.

Highmark and FLACS have been working together since 2015. The first development together had Highmark repurpose an existing building to become the FLACS 3 campus. Soon after, Highmark completed a de novo development for FLACS 2. As the network continued to grow, the need for FLACS 4—a newly awarded charter—was evident.

After locating the ideal property for FLACS 4 at 1400 Cromwell St., across the street from the FLACS I original campus, Highmark undertook due diligence on the real estate and developed a plan for environmental cleanup while designing the facility to support FLACS’ highly successful program.

FLACS students enjoy, small student-teacher ratios, extended instructional days, after-school and weekend programs, robust literacy education, and an intentional focus on English Language Learners (ELL).

According to Highmark’s CEO Glenn Hileman, “This third development for FLACS, including the complex refinancing of the other two facilities, is representative of how Highmark solves facility issues for charter-school operators around the country. We appreciate our friends at FLACS and are happy to be a part of their past and future success. The ultimate beneficiaries of our work with FLACS are the children and families of the Bronx.”

Highmark School Development has developed more than 80 facility projects nationally for charter school boards and operators. More on Highmark can be found here.

For more information, contact Patrick Beausoleil; Tel. 616.717.0484; patrick@highmarkschools.com.

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EPR Properties Announces Sale of Charter School Portfolio for Approximately $454 Million
Sunday, November 24, 2019 10:00:00 PM (GMT)Sale Activates the Company’s Strategic Migration to Experiential Real Estate

EPR Properties (the “Company”) announced that on November 22, 2019, it sold substantially all of its charter school portfolio, consisting of 47 charter school related assets, for approximately $454 million of gross cash consideration to a fund sponsored by Rosemawr Management, LLC (“Rosemawr”). This sale does not include three charter schools that the Company sold previously in the fourth quarter of 2019 for proceeds of $21.6 million and the one remaining charter school which the Company expects to sell during the fourth quarter of 2019.

The Company also announced today that the sale of the charter school portfolio activates its strategic migration toward focusing its growth on experiential real estate.

“Since we entered the charter school market we have enjoyed very attractive returns, but competitive financing alternatives, primarily in the tax-exempt bond market, have caused structural market changes that increased earnings volatility and were incompatible with our mandate as a REIT to provide long-term and predictable income,” stated Greg Silvers, President and CEO of the Company. “After deliberate consideration of our strategic options, we are excited about our decision to refocus our growth on experiential real estate.”

Mr. Silvers continued, “We recognize the strong consumer demand for location-based experiences, and believe our decades of experience, longstanding relationships and institutional knowledge will continue to provide us with a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe our diversified portfolio, with the ultimate addition of casino resorts, distinguishes us from other platforms and uniquely positions us to benefit from the strong tailwinds provided by changing consumer preferences and favorable demographics. Experiential real estate represents an estimated $100 billion market opportunity, and we look forward to continuing to build a diversified portfolio of high-quality assets that deliver attractive returns to our shareholders.”

The Company will also discontinue the organization of its portfolio around the discrete segments of Entertainment, Recreation and Education. Going forward the Company’s Experiential portfolio will be organized by the primary property types targeted for growth in experiential real estate. These property types include: Theatres, Eat & Play, Ski, Attractions, Experiential Lodging, Gaming, Fitness & Wellness, Cultural and Live Venues.

The Company expects several benefits from this migration including:

*   Enhanced Focus on Experiential Assets. This migration recognizes consumers’ strong preference for location-based experiences and creates a singularly focused organization that is committed to owning real estate that supports experiential activities and lifestyles.

*   Leveraging Institutional Knowledge. With more than 20 years of experience and knowledge investing in and owning experiential real estate, ​the Company is uniquely positioned to leverage its relationships, intellectual capital and institutional knowledge.

*   Reduced Earnings Volatility and Improved Rent Coverage. The sale of the charter school portfolio removes less predictable pre-payments which had increased in the charter school portfolio over time. Additionally, the Company’s overall rent coverage will improve as it moves from 1.89x to 1.94x following the sale of the charter school portfolio.

The Company intends to rapidly redeploy the proceeds from the sale to fund investments in experiential real estate, including potential casino resort investments. Separately, the Company has no present plans to sell its private school and early childhood education assets that are included in the Education portfolio, but will consider strategic dispositions if those opportunities present themselves in the future.

The Company’s internal rate of return over the life cycle of its charter school investments was approximately 10.5% unlevered, including the fourth quarter dispositions which resulted in a loss of approximately $19.0 million that includes the write-off of non-cash straight line rent and effective interest receivables totaling approximately $26.0 million.

As detailed below, management of the Company will host a conference call to discuss the sale of its charter school portfolio and the activation of its strategic experiential migration.

2019 Guidance Update

As a result of this transaction as well as other less significant items, the Company is increasing its 2019 disposition guidance range to $875.0 million to $900.0 million from the prior range of $400.0 million to $475.0 million, and is decreasing its guidance range for 2019 Funds From Operations as adjusted (“FFOAA”) per diluted common share (a non-GAAP financial measure) to $5.42 to $5.46 from the prior range of $5.44 to $5.52. The revised FFOAA per diluted common share guidance range for 2019 is based on a net income available to common shareholders per diluted common share (the most directly comparable GAAP measure) range of $2.35 to $2.39. The Company is confirming its prior 2019 investment spending guidance of a range of $775.0 million to $825.0 million.

2020 Guidance

The Company’s Board of Trustees expects to approve the next common dividend increase in late February 2020 when the Company announces its fourth quarter 2019 earnings and provides 2020 guidance. The Company plans to continue this approach in the future to match the timing of dividend decisions with the Company’s internal budgeting and external guidance process.

DREW C. WILSON | TIMES

As students and parents lined up at the Wilson Preparatory Academy’s front door, school founder and executive director Daryl Woodard stepped out into the crowd a couple minutes before the opening bell on the first day of school.

Woodard shook hands, bumped fists and welcomed everyone to the new year.

“We are extremely excited,” Woodard said. “We are going to have a record number of scholars here for our sixth school year.”

The school expects to have more than 900 students this year. In 2018-19, Wilson Prep had 849 students.

Earlier this year, the charter school held its first commencement and graduated 45 seniors.

“We have already had our first graduating class, so now we are going to have our second year of K-12 and we are ready to just take everything to a whole new level,” Woodard said.

The Wilson Prep campus has 54,000 square feet of facilities on 77 acres located at 2755 Tilghman Road. The school is currently building a $750,000 athletic complex for baseball, softball, soccer and track.

“We are in the North Carolina Athletic Association, so we are an official 1-A school in the state of North Carolina for athletics,” Woodard said.

The North Carolina Board of Education granted a 10-year charter school agreement for Wilson Preparatory Academy on March 7. WPA received its initial charter Jan. 9, 2014, and opened as a K-8 public charter school in August 2014. Wilson Prep became a K-12 public charter school for 2018-19.

Read more…http://www.wilsontimes.com/stories/wilson-prep-enrollment-grows-for-2019-20,186612

BY JOHN H. WALKER
Staff Writer

Thursday, August 8, 2019

TARBORO — North East Carolina Prep School has made a move that allowed the Tarboro charter school to buy the buildings and property it previously leased from Utah-based Highmark School Development.

The move will save the school about $30,000 per month, or $2.52 million over the seven-year life of the bonds. The school sold $23 million in bonds and also took out a $1 million subordinate loan due in five years.

North East Carolina Prep Executive Director William Etheridge said the financial moves will place the school “in a better position when we refinance in seven years. The sale of the bonds means we pay less in rent and have more money to spend on the instructional side as well as on salaries.”

Etheridge said the school does not have to follow the state salary schedule and is open to recruit teachers and negotiate their respective salaries.

“One of the things we are working on is to develop a salary schedule for employees,” he said.

The school received its charter from the state on March 1, 2012, and opened its doors for its first classes that August.

As enrollment grew, so did demand for classroom space, prompting the prep school’s board to look at options to accommodate the growth. That is when Highmark entered the picture.

Highmark purchased the property, which was the former Mary Frances Center, a privately owned adult recovery center for women that operated under contract with the state Department of Corrections.

Additionally, Highmark designed and built what now is the Grades 7-12 building in addition to adapting the existing buildings to the school’s needs. The total project, which entailed more than 110,000 square feet and 52 acres, carried a $16.4 million price tag.

The move was made possible when, on June 10, the Tarboro Town Council held a public hearing about the school getting up to $22 million in bonds to finance and acquire the school.

The town has no financial obligation in the matter and the council approval simply was a step required by the Internal Revenue Service code so the school can borrow money on a tax-exempt basis to purchase the facilities it already occupied.

A former board member said the school teamed up with Highmark because “they were the (only) one doing it. They were the ones you went to and through, because they did it all.”

The school, which looks to go over the 1,000-enrollment threshold this fall, is high-performing and ranked No. 54 out of more than 2,500 schools in the state this past year.

New for this year, and not connected to the sale of the bonds, is a pre-K program.

“It’s the first time we’ve offered it,” Etheridge said, explaining that the school had to climb out of a low-performing classification and also had to show financial stability through successful audits.

“We have nine students and a teacher’s assistant with a degree in early childhood education,” he said. “When we get to 14 (students) we will add another assistant and we can take up to 18.”

Etheridge said the pre-K program accepts vouchers and offers an after-school program. People interested in the pre-K program can call 252-641-0464 for more information.

Read more…http://www.rockymounttelegram.com/News/2019/08/08/Charter-school-purchases-property.html

By MIKE CHALUPA  and KONA-FACIA FREEMAN-NEPAYBALTIMORE SUN |AUG 12, 2019 | 11:21 AM

CREDO, the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes, a non-partisan research center out of Stanford University, recently released its report on the educational impact of public charter schools in Maryland. It was the first such report on public charter schools in our state. This study, with data supplied from the Maryland State Department of Education, shows the impact of public charter schools across Maryland and Baltimore City. The results and impact are profound.

Analyzing four years of data from 2013 through 2017 and using the baseline of 180 days as one year of learning, CREDO found that Maryland public charter school students, on average, outperformed their peers in non-charter public schools. According to the study, public charter school students gained an additional 30 days of reading and 35 days of math achievement per year. In the last school year of the study, 2016-2017, students in our public charter schools gained an additional 47 days of reading and an astronomical 59 days of math achievement. These additional days of achievement are not due to more physical time in school but done in the same 180 days required of all public school students.

Read more…https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-op-0813-credo-study-20190812-dkbqsnounze2fojqygfdyiav3e-story.html

12 Aug | BEN NORMAN

In 1994, Arizona became just the second state in the nation to enact a law that would establish public charter schools in the state. The following year, 67 charter schools opened and enrolled under 8,000 students combined.

Twenty-five years later, these numbers have skyrocketed; Arizona hosts roughly 550 charter schools that teach over 200,000 students. With 18 percent of the population attending a charter school, Arizona has the highest proportion of charter attendees in the nation.

“District schools are offering so much more variety of programming that they probably weren’t 25 years ago, and charters do the same thing,” Arizona Charter Schools Association president and CEO Jake Logan said. “We have this long list of innovations that charters have brought to the institutional marketplace, and we really think that’s been a net positive of having charter schools in Arizona, both for charter schools and districts, because parents and students have all different kinds of choices.”

Charter schools offer unique programs and curricula that were unprecedented by the time of their development. For example, Arizona School for the Arts in Downtown Phoenix offers focused classes in ballet, musical instruments, singing, and more. These programs allow students to pursue interest areas and potentially turn them into viable careers.

“There’s about 150,000 graduates of charter schools… the wide range of skill sets these students have is so amazing,” Logan said. “You have students that go to BASIS [schools] that are excelling in math and science and are filling those needs in our community, you have people from the arts — we have someone from the Arizona School for the Arts who is in the Russian ballet. I think we’ve done a really nice job at trying to look at what the community and parents and students are looking for — and whether it’s a prep school like Glendale Prep or it’s a school that focuses on a particular skill set like music or agriculture, it has helped prepare students for careers in those kinds of fields.”

In U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Charter High Schools,” seven Arizona charter schools landed in the top ten, including the number one: BASIS Scottsdale. In fact, Arizona charter schools hold two spots in the top twenty of all high schools in the nation. “To a national audience, it shows that there is something going on here,” said Kelly Powell, ACSA director of research and evaluation. “It’s a cluster of schools; it’s not by chance.”

Public charter schools in the state also provide pathways for underrepresented communities. For example, the Arizona Autism Charter School and Sequoia Deaf School both provide special educational curricula for those communities, Powell said.

“We have a whole segment of charter schools that serve kids that are at-risk — alternative schools. There are over a hundred of them. District schools will often refer them to us,” Powell said. “We put out a lot of tools, like test scores, we put out schools’ report card grades. But there’s a whole other group of parents whose kids are just lost and they’re struggling, and they don’t know where to turn. They go to alternative schools to finish it out and to try to turn them around; we specialize in that.”

Logan points out that these public charter schools help set up students for jobs within the local community. Charter students can utilize dual enrollment to obtain credits towards an associate’s or bachelor’s degree that will help them reach the next steps in their career.

“The theme of the day for us is how excited we are for 25 years of charter schools in Arizona and how excited we are for the next 25 years,” Logan said. “We really feel like it’s made a positive impact for Arizona students, and we’re going to continue working hard with our schools and do everything we can to continue that trajectory.”

Read more….https://azbigmedia.com/business/education-news/arizona-celebrates-25-years-of-charter-schools/

For more information about 25 years of public charter schools, visit: 25YearsofCharters.org.

Mike Kennedy | Jan 29, 2019

The American Dream School began as a middle school and is constructing a permanent site for high school grades.

The American Dream School is scheduled to break ground next month on a new high school campus in the Bronx section of New York City.

The charter school opened as a middle school in 2014 and since has expanded into high school grades. The American Dream School’s mission is to develop academic excellence in both Spanish and English, and prepare students in grades 6 to 12 for college.

The groundbreaking will take place at 10 a.m. on Feb. 8, according to a news release from Hollister Construction Services, the project’s design builder.

“We’ve grown in ways we didn’t anticipate when we opened our middle school, but that growth has been organic and in response to the real needs of our community,” says Board President Luz Maria Rojas. “When our parents and students asked for a high school, we listened, but we were stuck in temporary space.” We knew pretty quickly that we needed to find a permanent home.”

The American Dream High School will be a five-story, 33,000-square-foot facility in the Bronx’s Grand Concourse Historic District. The facility will house high school students and have a chemistry science lab, gymnasium, outdoor learning terrace, multipurpose room and classrooms. The school is slated for completion in 2020 and will have space for 324 students.

“A key element of our vision is to cultivate a welcoming, encouraging environment for English Language Learners and immigrant students where learning and language development is supported,” says Melissa Melkonian, founder of the school and its principal. “With the groundbreaking of our new High School Campus, we’re pushing our vision forward.”

Read more…https://www.asumag.com/new-construction/bronx-charter-school-build-high-school-campus

By Olivia Neeley

olivia@wilsontimes.com | 252-265-7879

Dozens of children lined up outside the dining room doors in anticipation of a Christmas dinner. But they could never guess what was about to happen next.

“It took a lot of donations and a lot of caring people to pull this off,” Chon Ferrell, Boys and Girls Club’s executive director, told the children. “When you walk in, each of you will have a gift.”

When staff finally opened the doors Friday, the children ran inside. That’s when their mouths dropped. They couldn’t believe it.

“That’s the best bike I’ve ever seen,” said 6-year-old Christian Jones, who couldn’t stop smiling. “I will ride my bike every day.”

Christian was one of more than 50 Boys and Girls Club members who each received a new bicycle for Christmas thanks to a generous donation from Wilson Preparatory Academy’s National Honor Society and National Beta Club members. Earlier in the week, students picked out $1,500 worth of bikes for children at the Boys and Girls Club. The community service project aimed to help those in need during the holiday season.

“We are very proud of these scholars who took time to make a different in their peers’ lives through this act of kindness,” said Daryl Woodard, Wilson Prepratory Academy founder and director.

‘BEST CHRISTMAS GIFT EVER’

Eight-year-old Mariah Ellis could barely could contain her excitement either.

“I was so surprised when I walked in,” she said. “All those bikes where in a big pile. As soon as I saw them, I wanted to go over there and ride them.”

Ferrell said when she received the call from the charter school about the donation, she sat in her office and cried tears of joy.

She said knowing the children were blessed with a big Christmas present this year warmed her heart. She said the Boys and Girls Club is grateful to those who made it possible.

“When they walked in and you saw their faces, it was priceless,” Ferrell said. “That is the best Christmas gift ever.”

Parker’s Barbecue and the Salvation Army provided a Christmas meal for the children on Friday.

High school students at North East Carolina Preparatory School soon will be able to receive training in Unmanned Aircraft Systems, commonly known as drones.

The Unmanned Safety Institute recently announced that the school will be offering its Small UAS Safety Certification. The institute is a recognized leader in flight safety solutions for individuals, academia and organizations focused on integrating and operating Unmanned Aircraft Systems for civil or commercial purposes.

“We are honored that North East Carolina Preparatory School has chosen USI’s STEM education curriculum to provide their students with a high-skill and high-wage career path into the rapidly evolving drone industry,” said Josh Olds, president of the Unmanned Safety Institute. “NECP’s commitment to delivering stimulating curriculum to their students by arming them with industry-recognized USI certification will put them at the forefront of a competitive industry with limitless potential.”

The Small UAS Safety Certification is comprised of four courses of over 180 hours of instruction. Students who complete the program are eligible to take USI’s credentialing exam leading to the Small UAS Safety Certification, an industry certification demonstrating expertise in the safe and professional application of remotely piloted aircraft that will qualify them for careers in the burgeoning industry of Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

Students can then enroll in USI’s Career Pathways Initiative, providing them with a direct link to employers that are looking for professional remote pilots. To date, more than 4,000 students have successfully completed the program, which has already been approved by several state Departments of Education.

USI’s program is currently being taught in more than 150 schools across 20 states. USI is in the process of expanding the program into other states across the country and is currently training teachers to facilitate the curriculum for the 2018-19 school year.

Courses in the STEM curriculum, with each earning students three credits, include:

■ Unmanned Aircraft — five units of study including robotic aircraft and data links.

■ UAS Applications — five units of study including applications, regulations and operating in the NAS.

■ UAS Personnel — three units of study including human factors and aeronautical decision making.

■ Safety Management — four units of study including safety policy and safety risk management.

Unmanned Safety Institute offers a total of four courses that have been recommended for college credit by Ace Credit. For a complete listing of these courses, visit the Unmanned Safety Institute’s page on Ace Credit National Guide website.

To view the article click here

Capstone Classical Academy is a new charter school located at 3885 Rt Highway 89 in Pleasant View, Utah. Doors will open this fall for a new kind of learning experience.

Capstone will provide students in 6th through 12th grades a classical education based on a Finnish model.

Capstone Classical Academy wants you to know that, “In a standard school population, close to 15% of students can be classified as gifted learners and unfortunately in our area the schools focus more on closing the gap between those that are behind the curve and those who perform at normal levels. This approach means top performing students often find school to be, well…boring. In fact, you might have one of those students in your home.”

You may need to ask yourself, as a parent, if your young, bright student finds it is a struggle in school to stay engaged and challenged? Students, such as these, now have an option at Capstone Classical Academy.

Susan Goers and her team will open a secondary academy to serve this particular group of scholars. You may be asking yourself—what is classical education? Here is the answer: It is an educational approach that goes all the way back to the Middle Ages. It bases education on the different developments of the human stage.

For instance, the Grammar stage teaches students how to learn, the Logic stage focuses on developing logical thinking, and the Rhetoric stage focuses on developing thinking and creativity while reading and writing. Each level is solidly ground in literature, history, and virtues.

Dr. Goers is originally from Rochester, New York where she gained 30 years of experience teaching the classical approach. She has organized a staff and administration of community members who also feel passionate about this style of teaching (Capstone Classical Academy) and who value a top-level education.

The board of directors currently includes: Mr. Chris Gurnee, Chairman; Mr. Aaron Stringer ESQ, Vice Chairman; Mr. Patrick Munson CPA Treasurer; Mrs. Linda Reed, Secretary; and Mrs. Tammi Ross, Trustee Educator.

When students come to Capstone they will be taught the “Why” of the information, as they learn, so they may apply it in the real world. They are taught the history behind the education. This more practical approach brings real life into the classroom.

The students will be clustered as follows: 6th grade will be taught and instructed individually; 7th and 8th grade will be grouped together in unstructured classrooms; 9th through 12th grade will travel together.

Students will visit four hubs each day for instruction and study which are as follows: Humanities, STEM, Life Skills/Citizenship, and the Arts. Instructors will have a background or experience with Core Knowledge and Classical Knowledge.

Studies will involve a direct emphasis in constitutional studies and how the Bible is the foundational document that gave influence to the Constitution of the United States and classical literature. Math and logic will also be taught in the traditional approach.

Also, 11th and 12th grade students will be given the opportunity to complete a certification course by the time they graduate through the Ogden/Weber Applied Technology College.

In fact, as a requirement to graduate from Capstone Classical Academy, students must have one of the following: an acceptance letter from a college or university or a completed certificate from the Ogden/Weber Applied Technology College giving them the great opportunity to begin, right away, with their career.

Capstone believes, “There is no graduating from high school without a vision and mission to move onto the next phase of life. These students are ready to launch into either a college career, or the immediate job market.”

For more information visit: www.capstoneclassical.org

To view the article click here

California’s charter school enrollment continues to skyrocket, growing by more than 25,000 students during each of the past 10 years.

Almost 630,000 students attended California public charter schools at the start of this school year — about one in every 10 students, according to new data from the California Department of Education. California charter school enrollment has increased 150 percent in the last 10 years.

Charter schools operate independently from public school districts. Proponents of charter schools say this freedom benefits teachers and students by encouraging innovation. Opponents say they take away funds from traditional public schools, increasing educational disparities.

The fight between charter schools and traditional schools is a major issue in California politics. Charter school proponents, for instance, are pouring millions into the gubernatorial campaign of former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

During the past five years, charter school enrollment grew by at least 30 percent in 26 California counties. Among urban counties, growth was fastest in Contra Costa, San Francisco and Los Angeles counties.

Charter school enrollment grew by 34 percent in Sacramento County. Enrollment in Placer and Yolo counties grew by about 27 percent. El Dorado County’s charter school enrollment declined because a statewide charter, Aspire, moved the charter for six schools from there to other counties.

To view the article click here

The Vineland Public Charter School can now offer students a pre-K through 12th-grade education.

The state Department of Education notified the school officials that their charter was renewed based on “academic performance, fiscal viability and operational stability.”

“Now we are renewed another five years until June 2023,” the school’s executive director Ann Garcia recently told The Daily Journal.

“They also approved us for 11th and 12th grade,” Garcia said, noting Vineland Public Charter School is the lone charter school in Cumberland County to offer a pre-K through high school program.

Until this recent approval, the charter school was approved up to 10th grade, which it currently offers.

“Because of the renewal process, they don’t go past your renewal date,” Garcia said. “This is our renewal year, so next year we can expand to 11th and 12th grade and we are.”

These new upper classes will be phased in one year at time, with 60 slots allocated for each grade.

“We are going to have some open houses and have some meetings with our current parents to see where they feel the needs are,” the executive director said.

“I’m willing to entertain anything that comes up,” Garcia said, adding she plans to stay to course by offering small class sizes.

The Vineland Public Charter School officials are optimistic the approved expansion will help recruit more high school students.

“Because we never had the approval to 12th grade, it’s been very hard to attract parents,” Garcia said.

State education officials also approved the move of the school’s pre-K program from rented facilities at Beth Israel Congregation of East Park Avenue to its new school at 1480 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The lease ended Dec. 31.

“We built classrooms for pre-K,” Garcia said. “We are approved for four classes but because of the low student population in Vineland, we only have two classrooms.”

Vineland Public Charter School, the first charter school in Cumberland County, opened in 2009 and grew to include a network of leased locations.

This school year, the staff and students officially celebrated the opening of their 35,778-square-foot newly constructed school, although they’d moved into the building last April.

“Everything now is under one roof,” Garcia said.

But that may change with the addition of the two new grades.

“For next year, we are probably going to look at a satellite site for the high school program,” Garcia said. “That is something we need to talk to the parents about.”

The Millville Public Charter School, the VPCS’s sister school, is currently kindergarten through 8th grade. It was recently approved to add 9th and 10th grade, which will be phased in starting next year.

With district of residency agreements, Millville students are eligible to attend the Vineland charter school high school program.

“Initially, we opened with a K-4 approach but through the years with the test scores of the district and parents needing choice, we pretty much moved in this direction,” Garcia said. “I’m delighted with the ability to open a high school.”

Charter schools are publicly funded and are not tuition schools. The per-child cost of educating a student follows the youngster from the school district to the charter school.

To view the article click here

Wilson Preparatory Academy has received its accreditation three and a half years after opening in August 2014.

AdvancED, the nonprofit, non-governmental organization that accredits primary and secondary schools throughout the United States and internationally, made the certification earlier this year following a two-day visit to the school in November.

“It brings that validation to every educational institution that we are accredited, that we are doing what we are supposed to be doing and that is why we were seeking our accreditation so that we would be in line with other schools and what they are doing,” said Shawan B. Woodard, associate director. “It tells you what you are doing as a school as a whole.”

Wilson Preparatory Academy has 685 students from kindergarten to 11th grade. In the fall of this year, it will begin as a K-12 school with its first graduating class of seniors in the spring of 2019.

Daryl Woodard, founder, director and husband of Shawan Woodard, said the accreditation process was intense.

“Before they come, we have to upload about 80 documents,” Woodard said. “They had to look through all of this information before they even came. When they come, they want to see if what you have on paper is actually what you have in the classrooms and in the school. They interviewed parents. They interviewed teachers. They interviewed the administration. They interviewed the board of directors.”

According to Shawan Woodard, highlights that the examiners liked about the school were the National Honor Society and National Beta Club.

They also appreciated that Wilson Prep blends technology with traditional teaching methods.

“From day one, we started giving Chromebooks to take home,” Daryl Woodard said. “We don’t start in middle school. We don’t start in high school. We give the kids Chromebooks in the third grade, when they start taking the EOG. They really liked the fact that we are using technology to teach. Let them do research. Let them travel around the world right there on the computer, guided by their teacher.”

A Chromebook is a type of inexpensive laptop computer that runs Google Chrome’s operating system and stores files on cloud-based online networks instead of an internal hard drive. They are a popular resource in education and can access homework, classwork, assignments and projects.

“You can put textbooks on the Chromebooks, so you don’t see kids with heavy backpacks like we did when we were going to school,” Woodard said. “I want to applaud the classroom teachers. That’s where the magic happens, and every day they are in the trenches making sure that the children have what they need.”

The couple’s son is in the 11th grade at the school and will be in the first graduating class.

“That was another reason why we sought out that accreditation. These kids that are here now in the 11th grade are applying to colleges that they can put on their applications that they graduated from an accredited high school,” Shawan Woodard said. “We didn’t want to do anything that would hinder these children who are in the 11th grade here.”

“It’s not just for our child, but for every child that goes through Wilson Prep,” Daryl Woodard said. “This is something that is really, really a big deal as far as what we are trying to do to make sure that we keep our teachers on the cutting edge of academic achievement. We believe every child can learn. Not just the smart ones, but everybody. I don’t care what side of the tracks they come from, we want to make sure that everybody can get their academics and go on to be whatever they want to be.”

The school now has two buildings, housing kindergarten through seventh grade and eighth through 11th grade.

“We could have 1,000 kids if we wanted to. We want to grow very methodically to make sure that our climate and culture is conducive to learning, so we don’t want to grow too fast,” Daryl Woodard said. “Now we are getting ready to embark on an athletic complex in the back. We are going to have a soccer field, a lacrosse field together, a track, a baseball field. We are going to have all of the sports right here. We have 77 acres that we can do it with. But again, we don’t want to grow too fast. We want to make sure that we have the intimate contact with the kids to make sure they are getting what they need in that classroom. We want to continue to be on the cutting edge of academic achievement.”

Alicia Gregory is a parent of two children at the school who also teaches fourth grade reading and social studies.

She described the accreditation of the school as being “fabulous.”

“I am very excited to know that Wilson Prep has gone above and beyond to prepare them for the world,” Gregory said. “Especially for my daughter. We have some college visits planned for next week. Just knowing that all of the steps are in place for that to happen is very comforting.”

Daryl Woodard said the school doesn’t have to have AdvancED accreditation, but it does make a difference for students who are applying to a college or university.

“It makes a difference if you are graduating from a school that has been accredited than one that is not,” Woodard said. “We are positioned now, especially with out first graduating class, that they are positioned to have something that will hit the desk that will show that we have AP Capstone program here. We have accreditation. We are positioning them to not only get an athletic scholarship but also an academic scholarship. It is something that we are very proud of.”

Wilson Preparatory Academy, located on Tilghman Road, also received an Exceeded Academic Growth Award for 2016-17 from Mark Johnson, state superintendent of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.

“Last year we exceeded growth,” Woodard said. “That was something we were very proud of too, because of the hard work that the kids did and the teachers did.”

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Students stood in long lines, some holding hands with their parents, as they waited for school doors to open for the first day of school at Wilson Preparatory Academy at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Wilson Prep is located at 2755 Tilghman Road and enrolls students from kindergarten to 11th grade.

“Greetings and welcome back,” Daryl Woodard, founder and executive director, said cheerfully as students and parents walked in the door. “So glad to see you.”

Many gave Woodard a high-five when they walked in.

“Our theme this year is ‘take it to the next level, academically, athletically, socially and behaviorally – all the way around.'” Woodard said of his expectations for the 2017-18 school year. “Our teachers, staff and administration are all on the same page. This is all about the children.”

Woodard said as he travels around the area, he is often met with parents who know how hard they work and want their children to go to WPA.

“The word is out that we care about each and every one of our students,” Woodard said.

Michelle Artis said she was on pins and needles waiting to hear if her son, Derrick, would be picked to be a WPA scholar.

“I had heard about the reputation and I know it is the best, so I said I have got to get my son in that school,” Artis said. “I got the email when I was at work. I was so excited I had to get up from my desk and go into the bathroom so I could give God the praise like I wanted to.”

Artis said little Derrick is ready for kindergarten and knows the alphabets, colors and can read.

Shemika Davis has a third-grader and sixth-grader who were selected to attend Wilson Prep this year.

“I was so excited I screamed right out in my office,” Davis said. “This is a great opportunity for my sons.”

Dindy Perry, who has a sixth-grader, said she and her husband Xavier love WPA because they are so focused on academics.

“I like that my son will be able to transition from middle school to high school and have the same staff to look out for him,” Perry said. “This is our first year here. I am glad he will be able to come to a school that will help him reach his goals for college.”

The student body has increased by more than 250 scholars this fall bringing enrollment to more than 700. New students are chosen by lottery, as required by state law. Woodard said the waiting list is long for parents who want to their children to be enrolled.

“Today we have about 98 percent of our children to show up for the first day,” Woodard said, smiling. “People are still on vacation and so it will take a few days to know how things will be. However, parents should not give up. There is still a chance somebody may not show up. When that happens, we go to the list and pick the next student. We just keep it moving.”

Elementary school principal Beverly Woodard, who is not related to Daryl Woodard, said this school year is going to be even more exciting than last year.

“Every teacher is excellent and we have a lot planned for our students,” Beverly Woodard said. “Children want to know that you care and that you will hear what they have to say. The little ones understand when you care about them.”

Beverly Woodard has a third-grader who attends WPA and a nephew. She said she likes peeping in on them.

Shawan Woodard, associate director of WPA, said educators are expecting students to build upon the great work they have already done at the school.

“When you expect children to do well, they try to meet the expectations,” Shawan Woodard said. “We can achieve even greater and we will.”

Phillip Rountree, middle and high school principal, held a rally for students in the new gym. Students sat attentively and met all of the teachers for the new year.

“Get ready, because we are on the move,” Rountree told the students. “I love each and every one of

you and I want you to see your future and be prepared to step right into it. Every one of you who want to go to college will do that. Believe it. So get ready to work hard.”

WPA’s students go from kindergarten through 11th grade. Next school year the 12th grade will be added.

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Forty-two scholars from the Vineland and the Millville Public Charter Schools were inducted into the National Junior Honor Society at a candlelight ceremony on Thursday, June 1, 2017. The group, made up of students from grades 6-9, represents the top academic achievers from the top two elementary schools in Cumberland County.

In her opening remarks, Executive Director, Dr. Ann Garcia, welcomed the students, family members, and faculty and congratulated the inductees on their hard work, dedication to excellence, and self-discipline. The inductees are:

Jose Acevedo
Sophia Adams
Alexander Anderson
Alanah Arkainno-Smith
Alisha Suarez-Armstead
Ronald Batario
Natalie Bateman-Parkhill
Brianna Caraballo
James Carr
Mathieu Carroll
Mackenzie Dutton
Morgan Eschert
Gianna Gonzalez
Achan Harris
Zariah Holmes
Hafsa Jamil
Asher Jenkins
Arianna Luciano
Lauren Maldonado
Alaina Martinez
Gabrielle McChesney
Genevieve Morgan
Tyler Muessig
Christian Nardone
Elizabeth Panchesine
Rebecca Panchesine
Ta’Leyah Parker Jones
Jaylise Perez-Camacho
Kayli Perez-Camacho
Brianna Pettus
Isabella Ramos
Julianna Ramos
Mylani Rodriguez
Dakota Runkle
Samantha Serrano
Sianna Seranno
Alayna Spencer
Alexis Spencer
Carington Tirado
Emma Torres
Natalya Vellon
Daniel Youhari
Ms. Deborah Morton, principal of Vineland Public Charter School and Ms. Valerie Kemp, principal of Millville Public Charter School, each gave closing remarks.

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It was a proud day for parents at Cirrus Academy in Macon as kindergarteners got a chance to walk the stage and turn their tassels.

They are the first graduating class at the charter school which opened last fall.

Some kids we spoke to said they learned a lot in their first year of school, everything from how to make friends to learning how to cross the street safely.

The principal, Dr. Gail Fowler, says if you look at this graduating class, you know the school has a bright future.

“All of our 2017 kindergarten graduates are an awesome group of young students who are thriving and eager to learn and are indeed shining stars,” said Fowler.

Cirrus is holding three more graduations next week for elementary and middle school kids.

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Wilson Preparatory Academy will showcase its new high school and gymnasium facilities during an open house planned for 1 p.m. Monday at the 2755 Tilghman Road school.

Students have been attending class inside the high school building for about six weeks, said Daryl Woodard, Wilson Prep’s founder and executive director.

The charter school opened in 2014 for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. School officials have added a grade level each year, with growing enrollment figures requiring a second classroom building for high-schoolers.

“We’re just putting on the finishing touches in the classrooms and the gym,” Woodard said in a news release. “…Now we are ready to show the public what we are doing here as we go into the end-of-grade testing. We are very excited. The students are happy and their parents are excited as well.”

Wilson Prep serves students from Wilson, Nash, Edgecombe, Wayne and Pitt counties.

Monday’s open house will begin with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 1 p.m. Guest parking will be available in front of the school.

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Two McLean students are headed to Florida for the national Mathcounts competition after finishing first and second in the state competition March 18 in Richmond.

BASIS Independent McLean’s four-student team won their division in its first time competing, according to a BASIS release.

The team includes Austin Feng (8th grade), Joshua Fu (8th grade), Pravalika Putalapattu, (7th grade) and Ethan Zhou (6th grade). They are led by Coaches Tyler Sullivan and Rikki McCullough.

In the individual Mathcounts competitions, Putalapattu and Zhou placed first and second, respectively, which places them on the four-person team representing Virginia at the 2017 Raytheon Mathcounts National Competition in Orlando in May.

As coach of the winning Mathcounts team, McCullough will also be flown to Orlando to coach the Virginia state team.

“As first-time competitors, we were thrilled to see our school win our regional Mathcounts championship, but to see them succeed at the state level and have the opportunity to compete nationally is truly an outstanding achievement, and we’re so proud of our student-teacher team that made this possible,” said Sean Aiken, head of school of BASIS Independent McLean.

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BIM broke the 30 year first place competition record after beating Longfellow Middle School of Falls Church, Virginia.

From MATHCOUNTS: For the first time in more than 30 years, the 34th Annual Northern Virginia Regional MATHCOUNTS Competition awarded first place to a new math champion: BASIS Independent McLean (BIM) of McLean, Va., which opened in 2016. BIM’s middle school math team placed first among schools in the Northern Virginia Chapter MATHCOUNTS Competition (comprised of 17 schools). Longfellow Middle School of Falls Church, Va., who has historically earned the first place award since the 1980s, came in second place. For more information on BASIS Independent McLean, go to http://mclean.basisindependent.com.

“We’re so proud of our students; they made MATHCOUNTS their competition, their project, their win,” said Sean Aiken, head of school of BASIS Independent McLean of McLean, Va. “Our school is designed to help kids take ownership of their own successes and failures, as each lends itself to great learning opportunities; we’re honored to have our students represent BASIS Independent McLean and very impressed that as a new school, they won by working together as a team,” said Aiken.

The Northern Virginia Regional MATHCOUNTS competition is held at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. The regional competition combines the Fairfax, George Washington and Northern VA Chapters of the Virginia Society of Professional Engineers. The top team and top students from each chapter will compete at the Virginia State MATHCOUNTS competition on March 18, 2017 in Richmond, Va. Sixth through eighth grade students from 53 Virginia elementary and middle schools competed at the events. These students have been practicing since the fall and were selected to represent their schools at the competitions. Students compete as school teams and as individuals.

Sponsors of The Northern Virginia Regional MATHCOUNTS program include: Northrop Grumman Information Systems, Comcast NBCUniversal, The Association for Manufacturing Technology, George Mason University, MITRE, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts of Alexandria, Va. and individual engineer contributors. National sponsors of MATHCOUNTS include: Raytheon Company, Northrop Grumman Foundation, U.S. Department of Defense, National Society of Professional Engineers, CNA Foundation, Phillips 66, Texas Instruments Incorporated, 3Mgives, Art of Problem Solving and NextThought.

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In a socially and economically globalized world, the need to be culturally aware has increased dramatically. That’s why BASIS Independent Brooklyn, a private school located in Red Hook, has unrolled a new curriculum designed to expand student cultural awareness.

“We wanted to build a program around international and cultural awareness,” says BASIS Head of School Hadley Ruggles. “We wanted students to look outside of their own world beyond their zip code, community and family.”

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently issued a report on global competency, which noted that “If young people are to co-exist and interact with people from other faiths and countries, open and flexible attitudes, as well as the values that unite us around our common humanity, will be vital.”

In the classroom, BASIS students will look at themes of family, community, and heritage. They will also be connecting with students in other BASIS network classrooms in the US and China.

Jo Goldfarb, director of communications at BASIS, explained that these programs will be present in all classrooms. Last month, for instance, kindergarteners spent several weeks sharing images of their home, their family, and their stories with students in Shenzhen, China.

The middle school students have also been active with the program. In December, they completed a “Cultural Ambassadors” project in collaboration with Columbia University. The students performed in short video talks in which they explored either their own culture or another culture present at BASIS.

In the videos, students discussed topics relevant to a specific culture, government, or place. Examples included pollution in Chinese cities and New Delhi, political policy in China, and the Syrian refugee crisis.

Goldfarb noted that this program aims to “to cultivate empathy and understanding for 21st century learners about to enter an increasingly interconnected marketplace.”
And while BASIS’s new programs spend a good deal of time looking outward at the world, Goldfarb added that “the diverse cultures that make up Red Hook has been a big part of the discussion.”

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Impact Charter Elementary School, on Lavey Lane in Baker, celebrated its third year of operation under its charter status from the state with a Founder’s Day celebration and convocation Oct. 5.

As the first school to be chartered in Baker and the first new school to be constructed in the Baker community in over 30 years, Impact Charter serves more than 350 pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade students, a news release said.

Scott, who has a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Southern University and a master’s degree in business administration from LSU, has more than 12 combined years of experience in governmental internal auditing, financial accounting and nonprofit management.

Besides Impact Charter Elementary, Scott is founder of Friends of Impact and co-founder of Education Explosion, a nonprofit educational organization. It was her leadership role with Education Explosion that resulted in the formation and launch of Impact Charter Elementary.

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FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Nearly 300 students have enrolled at a new private school that has opened its doors in Tysons, the school announced Monday.

More than 40 teachers welcomed the students to the school, called BASIS Independent McLean, a pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade private school.

Located at 8000 Jones Branch Drive (see map below) at the redesigned former campus of Freddie Mac, the 120,000 square-foot school designed by Gilbane Perkins Eastman Design has more than 23 classrooms, as well as a gymnasium, chemistry, biology and physics laboratories, demonstration and reading rooms, full-service cafeteria and indoor and outdoor play areas.

Tuition for the 2016-2017 year at the school is $22,000 for pre-school and $25,500 per year for kindergarten to 12th grade. Next year the tuition will be $22,900 for preschool, $25,900 for kindergarten-grade 4 and $26,900 for grades 5-12.

Classroom sizes at the new school average around 17 students, according to a news release announcing its opening. In addition to traditional classrooms, BASIS Independent McLean offers an industrial arts room, a theater, music rooms and art rooms. Designed to be energy-efficient, every classroom has its own climate control, with programmable light settings, while natural light prevails in the school with a four-story glass arch atrium and five additional light wells in the cafeteria.

The gym is two stories high, with natural light, with visibility into spaces designed for college counseling and an art gallery. The early childhood (preK-K) area has its own entrance and a multi-purpose atrium with indoor and outdoor play areas, and classrooms for younger students.

“We’re thrilled to see all the students and begin a new chapter of education in Tysons Corner,” said Sean Aiken, head of school of BASIS Independent McLean, in the news release. “The school’s design and classrooms are reflective of our teaching and education philosophy, providing engaging tools, spaces and environments that nurture, invite and challenge our students in learning.”

Aiken was a crucial member of the leadership team that built BASIS Oro Valley in Arizona which was ranked number one by the Washington Post in 2016 and also in 2015.

As an English teacher, soccer coach, developer of the first 7th grade Logic curriculum, the school’s founding college counselor and finally the Head of School, “his influence on the school community was profound,” the school noted in its news release. In 2013, Aiken relocated to Washington D.C. where, as Head of School, he led BASIS Washington DC and its faculty to achieve Tier 1 status and recognition as the #2 charter school in Washington, D.C. in only the school’s second year of operation. He subsequently oversaw the opening of BASIS Independent of Brooklyn, N.Y. and BASIS Independent of Silicon Valley, Calif. and has also served as VP Intellectual Capital managing the structure and implementation of the BASIS.ed curriculum.

The former corporate headquarters campus for Freddie Mac, BASIS Independent McLean is an environment uniquely suited for its liberal arts and science programs. The three-story commercial property is being repositioned to ultimately accommodate up to 1,250 students. The initial phase converted approximately 120,000 square feet of the commercial space into classrooms, labs, athletic space, administrative space and a central atrium.

“Repositioning an old corporate headquarters into a collaborative learning environment for BASIS Independent McLean was a really unique situation; it involved applying not only our K-12 experience but also our corporate office experience…you just don’t see that every day,” says Drew Mucci, senior vice president at Gilbane Building Company. “This project was particularly important to us because the school employs a STEM-focused curriculum, a project that gives us a chance to support the industry and hopefully inspire students to pursue careers in construction too, ” said Mucci.

Here’s more information about Gilbane and Perkins Eastman, the company that redesigned the school space:

Gilbane Perkins Eastman DC’s (PEDC) extensive experience working together, includes over $240 million in recent design build projects in the DC metro area. The team combines the talents, experience, and resources of Gilbane as the prime contractor and our design partner, PEDC, two national leaders in public sector design and construction, who have collectively delivered over $3 billion in facilities in the District of Columbia in the past 10 years, including Dunbar High School, Roosevelt High School and Cleveland Park Library, which is still in progress. For more information go www.gilbaneco.com and www.perkinseastman.com.

Here’s more about the founding of BASIS:

BASIS was founded in 1998 by Dr. Michael and Olga Block, world-class economists and academics, who developed a formula for success for every child by offering a rigorous, globally competitive liberal arts and science curriculum taught by passionate subject-expert teachers and supported by a culture of excellence. What began as a single campus in Tucson, Ariz. has grown to become a unique, high-achieving, network of schools with three independent, private schools in Brooklyn, N.Y., Silicon Valley and Fremont in Calif., and now in McLean, with an international school in Shenzhen, China, and 16 public charter schools across the United States. Today, BASIS.ed students have propelled their schools to become the top ranked in the nation.Visit them at http://mclean.basisindependent.com, Facebook, Twitter@BASISI.

PHOTOS of students and faculty at BASIS McLean courtesy of BASIS McLean

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Patrick Beausoleil

Tel. 616.717.0484

patrick@highmarkschools.com

Charter School Facility Developer

Announces Strategic Hire: Amy Ruck Kagan

Salt Lake City, UT: August 30, 2016 – Highmark School Development—the nation’s leading, facility developer for charter schools—has announced the hiring of Amy Ruck Kagan as its Director of Portfolio Management.

Ms. Ruck Kagan brings 15 years of public education experience to Highmark, with nine of those years in the charter school sector. Most recently, she served as the founding Executive Director for Philadelphia Charters for Excellence (PCE), Philadelphia’s leading advocate for high-quality charter schools in the city.

Prior to PCE, Ruck Kagan was the Director of Charter Schools for the New Jersey Department of Education where she oversaw a portfolio of 87 charter schools and later served students and families in New Jersey as the Deputy Commissioner for Innovation for the state Department of Education. Before her work in New Jersey, she developed charter schools in New York City and Washington, DC for a non-profit organization and also worked for the New York City Charter School Center.

Highmark selected Ruck Kagan because of her experience in building accountability and performance management systems; in finding areas of flexibility and autonomy for charter schools; and for her support of policies and practices that improve educational options and outcomes for students.

Highmark CEO Glenn Hileman described Ruck Kagan’s hiring as “strategic.” “We have a portfolio of nearly 50 charter schools across 15 states, and we’re adding up to 20 facilities per year. We’ve known Amy for several years and are very pleased to have her on board. Her relationships, experience, depth of knowledge, and character will prove to be a great value to Highmark and the schools we serve.” Hileman concluded with, “I look forward to having Amy engage our current and future charter school partners.”

Highmark School Development is a facility developer for charter schools with access to $200 million in capital annually for facilities. Highmark was founded in 2005 and operates in 15 states, serving over 30,000 students. The firm works with start-up charter schools, operational schools, and multiple-site charter school management companies. It also develops properties for select private school operators.

Wilson Preparatory Academy recently broke ground on a new wing that will nearly double the size of its existing building.

According to Daryl Woodard, founder and executive director of Wilson Prep, the new wing will add 25,000-28,000 square feet to the already 30,000 square-foot building.

He said the wing will house high school-age children as the school continues to grow.

In 2014, Wilson Prep was approved by the State Board of Education as a K-12 charter school. It were initially approved to begin as a K-8 school and add a grade level each year. This year, the school will house kindergarten through 10th-grade students.

Woodard said the growing demand makes this kind of addition necessary.

“Because of our waiting list, because of the demand, because of the success we’ve had academically, we are really looking forward to having more success with additional space and additional teachers,” said Woodard.

The addition, which the school is calling Phase 2, will have not only additional classroom space, but a regulation-size high school gym. He said once the school is operating as K-12 institution, ninth through 12th-graders will have class in the new wing.

Bouma Construction, which will be building the addition, constructed the initial building on a 90-day timeline once the foundation was laid.

Woodard said he is planning for the same fast turnaround as last time.

“We were very excited when we moved into this building, and when parents were applying to this school, this was nothing but a field,” said Woodard. “The faith and confidence that they had in us was really tremendous. We hope they have the same confidence in us this time.”

He said the most important thing is the addition will allow the school to educate more students.

When the school was founded in 2014, 900 applications were recieved for 360 spots.

“Educate, motivate, graduate — that’s our motto,” said Woodard. “Just to have kids come through is not our thing. We want to [have] a personalized education for each one of the kids, or what we call scholars. Here at Wilson Prep, we don’t want to be like a warehouse. We want them to feel like they are loved, they are appreciated and the parents feel confident that their kids are going to have a quality education.”

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On Monday, Sheldon Hart and other organizers will see their vision become reality as Cirrus Academy opens its doors to students for the first time.

The state-funded charter school is located in the old Hamilton Elementary School site on Pio Nono Avenue, and Hart — chairman of the school’s governing board — said things were “moving very quickly” to put finishing touches on classrooms and other parts of the building.

“It’s almost kind of surreal a little bit,” he said of being so close to opening.

The school has reached its goal of 618 students with a waiting list in every grade, and construction at the school was complete in time for teachers to move into their classrooms. Last week, as those teachers began to decorate classrooms and post class rosters, Hart said he could tell everything was coming together.

“It started to really, really look like a school,” he said.

School leader Ashanti Johnson, who is serving alongside Principal Michele Flowers, said her enthusiasm picked up when she met with teachers last week.

“We’re excited,” she said. “It’s like a community, it really is.”

Johnson came on board in June after a career in higher education, most recently at the University of Texas at Arlington. She said the school’s leadership, faculty and staff are aiming to make Cirrus a “light on the hill” for the community, and that common goal is encouraging.

“That is like watching a group come together, hearing the potential and actually seeing it,” she said.

The school — the county’s third charter school — will have a focus on science, technology, engineering, arts and math. That curriculum will focus heavily on hands-on learning, which will include a new gardening program through Mercer University in the spring. This fall, students will begin learning about compost and making preparations for their gardens.

“It’s essential,” Johnson said of the experience-based education.

That emphasis helped convince LaQuita Mainer to come out of retirement to coordinate the school’s classroom technology efforts. Mainer taught for 33 years in Bryan County, Savannah and Bibb County schools and also worked at Middle Georgia State College, but she decided she wasn’t quite done when she read the vision statement of preparing students for college and careers through a STEAM education that was posted on the school’s website.

“It just seemed like something that I feel is really needed,” Mainer said.

She even said she didn’t necessarily need to get paid to work at the school.

“I told them, ‘Even if I can’t be involved, I’ll volunteer,’ ” Mainer said.

In her position with the school, Mainer said it’s her goal to help teachers incorporate technology into their lessons and methods. She said today’s students are “digital natives,” so it’s important that teachers use technology with a purpose and even learn from their students’ creativity in the digital realm.

“My passion is I love to work with teachers on the integration of technology,” she said.

The Bibb County school district, along with the Academy for Classical Education and Macon Charter Academy, will also start school on Monday, and there are several new things to remember this year.

Veterans Elementary School

For the first time, students will attend the new Veterans Elementary School, located at 4901 Faubus Ave. in southwest Macon. The school is a consolidation of Morgan Elementary School and Barden Elementary School, and it features a two-story layout.

Cleveland Johnson III is the school’s first principal, and Arrika Tunstell, who has worked in Bibb County for 13 years, is the school’s assistant principal.

New career education campus

The career education programs for Bibb County schools are also on the move.

Formerly housed at the Hutchings building on Riverside Drive, the programs will now operate from the Dr. Robert J. Williams Complex on Anthony Road, formerly known as the Promise Center. That created room at the Hutchings building for the alternative school, which is moving from the Burghard Elementary campus.

Bell schedule change

The district has also changed the bell schedule for all of its students in a switch to a three-tiered system that is expected to allow buses to arrive on time more consistently.

High school students will attend school from 7:30 a.m. to 2:35 p.m., elementary school students will attend from 8:20 a.m. to 3:20 p.m., and middle school students will attend from 9:05 a.m. to 4:05 p.m. The move came after a series of surveys and public forums and was largely in response to a shortage of bus drivers.

Jeremy Timmerman: 478-744-4331, @MTJTimm

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PALM BAY, Florida—A large electronic welcome sign outside Pineapple Cove Classical Academy scrolls: ” An old-fashioned education.”

Located in Palm Bay, on Florida’s mid-Atlantic coast, this public charter school serves a diverse community of lower- and middle-income families. Pineapple Cove quickly has become an educational gem in Brevard County. Its 23 classrooms feature directed instruction, teaching in explicit phonics, history (imparted through original source documents – not textbooks), music, art and – rare in 2016 – cursive writing.
A fervent expectation infuses this campus: All students can grow, academically and also in character.

“It’s really funny that our 2,500-year-old curriculum is now an innovative one,” says the school’s principal, Kelly Gunter, 33, who wrote the school’s charter.

Just a year old, the kindergarten-to-sixth-grade school will expand to add a seventh grade this fall and an eighth by 2017, when new classrooms are completed.

This campus is one of the latest in Hillsdale College’s Barney Charter School Initiative. The Michigan-based liberal arts college has supported 15 U.S. charter school startups, aiming for 50 such institutions by 2022.

Hillsdale does not fund the schools. Instead, it offers free mentoring to school founders who follow Hillsdale’s educational philosophy.

“Our role is to serve as the architect of the academic program, which includes curriculum and instruction, and provide on-going advice to the school founders and to the school principal,” said Phillip Kilgore, director of Hillsdale’s charter program. Hillsdale also helps the schools recruit principals, trains teachers and offers feedback after on-site visits.

“We maintain this relationship with each school,” Kilgore said, ” so long as they stay on mission and adhere to the educational philosophy we all embraced together at the inception of the relationship.”

With its classical curriculum, uniforms and commitment to teaching the virtues of courtesy, perseverance, self-government, service, honesty and courage, Pineapple Cove already boasts a 400-student waiting list for fall as word spreads.

The First Look at Charters and Earnings

Charter high schools graduates more likely to graduate, go to college, stay in college and earn more.

“It has taken that community by storm,” said Kilgore, who praises the school’s great start. “The teachers there have had just a really wonderful experience intheir launch in their first year.”

The school was founded by John and Beth Moran, who opened Pineapple Cove Academy Early Learning facility, also in Palm Bay. Thanks to their success with pre-kindergarten students, parents asked for more. Soon, the enterprising couple connected with Hillsdale and started the new campus last August.

Moran says he’s no educator and calls himself a “business guy.” But his enthusiasm for excellence is heartfelt. “I have an incredible drive,” he says. His connection to children is also undeniable as he scans the cafeteria and playfully sprays whipped cream on small, giggling faces.

Statewide, 22 percent of all charter-school students are black. Pineapple Cove is similarly diverse. Hispanic students make up 16 percent of enrollees. Black and multiracial students represent 9 percent each.

Academically, Florida charter schools perform well against their traditional counterparts, according to Student Achievement in Florida Charter Schools, an April 2014 state education department study. Most significantly, the report revealed that the black/white student-achievement gap” was lower for charter-school students in18 of the 18 comparisons,” across all grades and subjects.

Charter Schools Score in Cities

Urban charter schools are doing better than public ones, but can’t always close the achievement gap.

State reading scores from 2015-16 show Pineapple Cove outpacing its district counterparts in second, fourth and sixth grades.

Gunter says teachers and students focus on excellence. “It’s all business when you are here, because this should be your job.”

Latin and classic literature are school staples. Sixth graders read everything from Shakespeare to “The Scarlet Pimpernel.” They also learn to recite poetry, which fortifies their memorization and public-speaking skills.

Pineapple Cove uses a core knowledge curriculum that outlines a series of lessons and learning goals that fortify one another, from grade to grade. When students study Greek, they also listen to Greek music. Students do not work on computers in the classroom.

Perhaps most important, there is a shared focus on teaching virtues and doing the right thing. A tone-setting sign in a second-grade classroom cites Booker T. Washington: “Character, not circumstances, makes the man.”

The school also teaches service and patriotism by partnering with the American Legion. Members participate in school ceremonies and student projects, such as Valentine’s for Veterans.

Assistant Principal Lisa Wheeler, 37, praises her colleagues and the school’s growing family. ” We have such invested parties here,” she said of their spirited devotion.

“I believe the freedom we have been given as a charter school allows usto make decisions that are in the best interests of the children,” she said. “There are a lot of things that we profess in this school that are the exact opposite of what public progressive schools are doing today.”

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With just six weeks until the first day of classes, Cirrus Academy is making final preparations to open its doors to students.

The state-approved charter school announced Ashanti Johnson, an assistant vice provost and professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, as its CEO and head of schools on Friday.

Johnson is set to replace Teresa Yarber. Founding board chairman Sheldon Hart said Yarber had been “working hard” but is expected to move out of the area soon, and Hart said the board found a more than adequate new leader in Johnson.

“It’s like walking past Michael Jordan in a pickup game,” he said. “You can’t just walk past Michael Jordan.”

An earth and environmental science professor before her stint in administration, Johnson, 45, said she’s concentrated largely on professional development for graduate students. When she discovered that those students were not prepared well enough for the next stage in life, she began working with undergraduate students.

From there, she discovered that lower grades needed her focus.

“Then you realize the undergrad is still too late,” she said.

Coming to Cirrus Academy, her plan is to make the science, technology, engineering, arts and math-focused school a place where students are exposed to successful leaders in various fields. Johnson, a mother of three, is hopeful that by bringing in representatives from Georgia Tech for students interested in engineering, for example, she can help the students at Cirrus become the “cream of the crop” for colleges down the road.

“It’s more than just a degree out the door,” she said. “It’s getting them ready for the next level.”

Rebuilding an old property

The school is located at 1870 Pio Nono Ave., on the site of the old Hamilton Elementary School. Cirrus first announced it had secured that property in November 2015 with plans to renovate and be open by August 2016.

HighMark School Development has provided the estimated $7.6 million for the project. HighMark CEO Glen Hileman said in November that the old building had deteriorated enough that significant work would be needed.

“But the foundation and structure of the school is extraordinary,” he said.

HighMark also provided the $10 million for construction on what is now Macon Charter Academy, which recently filed for Chapter 11 reorganization and has been facing charter termination by the state.

Partially due to that solid brick and mortar shell and base structure, Cirrus Academy is on track to be open well before the planned Aug. 1 opening date. Hart said the construction should actually be complete within the next couple of weeks.

“At this point right here, it’s just formalities,” he said.

NOW YOU’VE GOT A BRIGHT, NEW SCHOOL BUILDING, REHABILITATED, ADDED ONTO, ADDITIONS, TECHNOLOGY AND THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER. I THINK IT SENDS A VERY POSITIVE MESSAGE TO THE COMMUNITY ABOUT HOW WE FAVOR EDUCATION.
Macon-Bibb County Mayor Robert Reichert

The school has cameras in the halls, with plans to expand that to the classrooms, both for security and professional development, a concept also being implemented in Bibb County schools. Cirrus classrooms will also be equipped with projectors for the whiteboards, which teachers will be able to use through computers, laptops or even tablets.

“While they’re walking around, working with groups of students, they can manipulate the projector,” Hart said.

A former math educator, Hart made sure to point out that teachers can still turn off the projector for more traditional work on the board.

“Nothing replaces going and working an equation on the whiteboard,” he said.

Macon-Bibb County Mayor Robert Reichert was among the officials in attendance, and he said he was “excited” by the progress at the school. He said the new school would provide parents an additional option and be a welcome change from the run-down former Hamilton campus.

“It eliminates an eyesore,” he said, pointing to the highly visible location. “To have a dilapidated school building, what sort of a message does that send? Now you’ve got a bright, new school building, rehabilitated, added on to, additions, technology, this, that and the other. I think it sends a very positive message to the community about how we favor education.”

Work left to be done

Reichert said he was also glad to hear that the school had about 530 students already set to attend in August, which Hart said was in line with what’s outlined in the school’s charter. He added that there were still about 10 spots left in seventh and eighth grades, but that kindergarten through sixth grade were all full.

“We’re still combing the waiting list,” he said.

The school still has a “ways to go” on hiring teachers, Hart said, and some student spots have been left open in case faculty members have children that will need to attend the school. Johnson said she wasn’t worried about being able to get qualified teachers hired and added that it was ideal to get the leadership team in place before rounding out the faculty to make sure everyone has a chance to “buy in” on personnel choices.

“We have a lot of talented applicants,” she said.

For now, the blue and white walls of the classrooms and hallways are mostly bare, but Johnson said that would change once teachers get in their rooms.

“The creativity of the teachers to customize is something I can’t wait to see,” she said.

She told parents and leaders gathered at Friday’s news conference that the school will be a joint effort of parents, teachers and community members. In the end, the plan is to inspire the students to reach goals beyond high school.

“We have students with a lot of potential, but we have a need to get them through a process,” Johnson said.

Jeremy Timmerman: 478-744-4331, @MTJTimm

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