Monroe City School Board Approves Charters

The Monroe City School Board has accepted applications for three charters. Neville High School, The Excellence Academy and The Vision Learning Academy have all been granted approval. But the charters may require some legal work before they become official.

 

The Board voted 5-1 in favor of granting three charter school applications.

 

 

The first school on the agenda, Neville High, has qualified for a Type III Charter; the sort where a local group applies to charter an existing school.

 

Ronnie Shelby is a volunteer with the Neville group. He says that the new charter status will not change much at the school.

 

“Same student body, same traditions, same spirit, same everything.”

 

Shelby’s group intends to have the charter school up and going by August of this year.

 

Charter School Operators, LaToya Jackson and Roosevelt Wright

Roosevelt Wright also heads a group that was also approved for a charter.

“The Excellence Academy will be a sixth through eighth grade academy. It will focus on trying to bring kids who are approaching basic up to level so that they can enter high school on time. We will have a program that will be geared toward them. To motivate them to do it, we will be arts intensive – kind of like a performing arts school.”

 

Wright says his Type I Charter School will open in 2013 with about 200 students. Wright hopes to negotiate with the district to use one of its buildings for the school.

 

The last school on the agenda was the Vision Learning Academy. Chief Executive Officer, LaToya Jackson, says that the school will benefit children who’ve had difficulties in regular public schools.

 

“Our education model is a little different because we will be doing block scheduling, and we will be using a psychotherapy model, which will have the teacher and the therapist in the classroom at the same time because the teacher can focus on the content and the therapist can focus on the behavior.”

 

Jackson says the Vision Learning Academy will begin with 150 students in grades 9-12. She hopes to open the academy near Sherrouse School, with a 2013 start date.

 

 

But despite the board’s approval of the charters the School district’s attorney, Doug Lawrence, says the applications will require legal fine-tuning.  

 

“I think the next steps are, we roll our sleeves up as a school district, and evaluate all the charter applications from top to bottom.”

 

Lawrence says the board will also inform the state board of elementary and secondary education that it has approved the charters.