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New charter school proposals garner support

Date: 12/10/2012

By G. Michael Dobbs

news@thereminder.com

SPRINGFIELD — A member of the city's Department of Planning and Economic Development, department heads at the Springfield YMCA and a recent Pynchon Award winner were among the many people came out to support one of two non-competing charter school applications at a public hearing last week hosted by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The hearings were part of the final application process for 11 charter schools proposed in the Commonwealth.

Springfield Collegiate Charter School would be a kindergarten through eighth grade school with the capacity of 465 students that would open in 2014 and be located in the South End.

Phoenix Charter Academy Springfield would serve 250 high school students and open in 2013.

William Spirer, the proposed executive director for Springfield Collegiate Charter School, told the panel the new school would have longer school days and a school year, would be highly structured, offer "game changing teachers" and emphasize literacy with more than three hours of literacy training in each grade each day.

"[Going to] college would be our North Star," he said.

He added that "fueling" the need for the school are the student failures in middle and high school.

In the application for the school, it was noted, "The South End of Springfield is severely economically depressed and lacking in strong educational options for its children. Notably, there is no elementary school that serves this neighborhood of 4,386 residents, 417 of whom are students in grades K-5. The South End struggles with a high poverty rate (63 percent) and 96 percent of South End families with students that attend Springfield Public School schools are low income.

"Meetings with parents in this community indicate a strong desire to have a school that they can access easily, and which provides their children with a high quality education. Of the 417 South End students in grades K-5, 25 percent attend the Daniel B. Brunton School, which requires a 45-minute commute and where only 38 percent of third graders are proficient in ELA [English Language Arts] and 47 percent are proficient in math. Other students are dispersed across more than 15 schools, none of which demonstrate strong academic performance, and six of which are designated as Level 4 schools. A strong school, using a seamless K-8 model and providing rigorous instruction from the first day of kindergarten, is desperately needed in Springfield and in the South End neighborhood in particular."

John Davis of the Davis Foundation voiced his support or the school and attributed the city's high dropout rate to the students not being adequately prepared for higher grades.

Attorney and Pynchon Award Winner Ellen Freyman, a former teacher, said the school would offer "new opportunities for children."

Samalid Hogan, project manager in the Office of Planning and Economic Development, said the new school would have a positive economic impact on the neighborhood that is still recovering from the 2011 tornado.

Beth Anderson, lead founder of Phoenix Charter Academy Springfield, explained that the charter high school would be designed for student ages 14 through 23. The philosophy and curriculum would be based on the Phoenix Charter Academy in Chelsea. She noted that 68 percent of the students at that school are students who have dropped out of public high schools, have high rates of truancy, are in social service programs or are teen parents.

Anderson explained the school would feature small class sizes and a "rigorous" curriculum to prepare students for college. No potential location was announced for the new school.

According to information supplied by the school, Phoenix Chelsea has been in existence for six years and in 2012, the school outperformed all but one of its sending districts in Massachusetts Comprehensive Academic System scores and 100 percent of its graduates were accepted to college. The school would be open to students in Holyoke and Chicopee as well.

Former students attested that their current success was due to the Phoenix Charter Academy either in Chelsea or Lawrence, one of whom said she would not be attending Bay Path College now if it hadn't been for Phoenix Charter Academy.

Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester will review the applications and testimonies and will make his final recommendations to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for its vote at its Feb. 26, 2013 meeting.