On March 9th the St. Mary’s County School Board denied an application for what would be St. Mary’s County’s first charter school. Since then their ruling has been reversed at the State level. Now the committee for Chesapeake Public Charter School looks forward to opening the school in the fall of 2006, as part of the same school system that sought to prevent its authorization. Kate Sullivan, a founding member of the charter school, and one of three women heading its progress, talks about the obstacles they’ve faced and new opportunities the school will offer to the county’s children.
When the law allowing charter schools in Maryland went into effect May 22nd a small group of teachers and educators had already met to discuss the possibility of forming a charter school in St. Mary’s County. In less than a year they submitted a draft application to the St. Mary’s County Public School Board – the charter-granting authority in St. Mary’s. The County School Board, however, wanted the charter school’s committee to go through each part of their application with the corresponding department heads to work out any problems, so the final draft could be approved within the 120 days legally allowed for their decision.
So, the charter group spent seven months, from April 2004 to November 2004 meeting with various departments and handed in their final proposal in November 2004. “It still took meetings, school board meetings, and work sessions to meet more of their recommendations and implement them,” explains Kate. The final meeting took place on February 9th 2005, amidst the entire Public School Board, all the department heads, and the charter school group. “There we thrashed out the last – what we thought were the last – of the remaining questions. When we got up from that table we had answered all those questions, they seemed perfectly pleased with our responses and how we were incorporating their recommendations, and everyone was happy.”
One month later, however, on March 9th, the School Board voted against approving the charter’s application. “We were stunned,” says Kate. “The vote absolutely amazed us. When we went in there March 9th we thought they were going to approve our application with some conditions – such as finding a facility. They said we were too much like a private school; they had other things they wanted to spend the money on instead. But the legislation already exists that there can be charter schools. We were following the guidelines of the law as far as our application went”.
The State school board overruled the county’s decision and authorized the charter school; with the proviso that the group finds a facility by Dec 31st. Kate thinks they’ll have one within a month. Their ideal location would be a central one, so that they can serve the local community – the committee for the school hopes Chesapeake Public Charter School will consist of a diverse student body and students of different socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. Rather than being elite or “semi-private,” as it has been accused of being, the new charter school will be a public one, open to any child in the area and free from tuition.
“The trouble for charter schools all over the United States,” suggests Kate, “is that local school districts see them as competition, as a slap in the face, see it as us saying we know how to do it better than you do.”
“It is sort of competitive,&rdquo
