May Add Schools In Three Local Districts
Three applications to open charter schools in Queens were submitted to be voted upon by a commitee this fall, the State University of New York (SUNY) Charter Schools Institute announced.
All three schools will be operated by Success Academy. If approved, each will be and granted charters and will open in fall 2016, Catherine Kramer, director of Charter Schools Information at SUNY Charter Schools Institute, told the Times Newsweekly in a phone interview Tuesday, July 22.
The applications were submitted for School Districts 24, 28 and 30, according to a release from the SUNY Charter Schools Institute.
Locations for the schools are not yet concrete, but information on newyorkcharters.org indicates colocations are possible.
“Since the specific buildings have not yet been identified by the DOE, the exact dimensions of the spaces are not yet known,” Success Academy (SA) wrote in its application. “SA NYC intends to request such public facility space in public school buildings within” Queens school districts.
The application period opened with a request for proposals (RFP) in January of this year. A public vote by the charter schools committee, under the leadership of he SUNY Board of Trustees will decide if the applications warrant approval, Kramer said.
Following the release of the RFP, people in a community can apply to open a charter school in thir district. A letter of intent followed and a full application was submitted by the July 7 cutoff date, Kramer said.
“It can be people in the community, or parents or teachers,” that submit the applications Kramer said .
The applications submitted this summer will be put through a review process, followed by a draft recommendation, Kramer stated.
“We evaluate the application academically and financially … in every way that is important to operating a school,” she said. “If approved the school will receive a charter.”
Kramer stated that “we ask them to try and identify that,” or provide information on what work was done to find a location or where possible sites would work.
“We’re still pretty early on in the process,” Kramer said. “Our review process is going on right now through the end of the summer.”
Each school that an application was submitted for will house Kindergarten through first-grade students the opening year, then be expanded to accommodate up to the fifth grade after five years, the release noted.
