The Delaware State Board of Education unanimously approved the charter school application for the Sussex Montessori School this evening with a 6-0 vote. The second charter school in Sussex County will open at the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. However, there were some conditions for the approval and should the charter school not meet those conditions, their charter would be revoked.
The two big conditions dealt with student enrollment and an actual facility. Delaware Secretary of Education Dr. Susan Bunting said the charter school must have 80% of their enrollment by May 1st, 2019. As well, they must have an actual facility in place. Currently, the school has not made a firm decision on a building or even an actual location in Sussex County.
The enrollment decision could be tricky. In the past, as was seen in the case of Delaware Design-Lab High School and Freire Charter School in 2015, they were not at their 80% enrollment numbers by May 1st of 2015, a mere four months before they opened. This caused both to go under formal review. While they met those numbers and escaped charter revocation, they did go through the formal review process first. Bunting’s decision to revoke the charter if that 80% is not met caused Delaware Charter School Network Executive Director Kendall Massett to immediately question the decision. I will have to check Delaware state code on this one!
This will be the second Montessori charter school in Delaware. First State Montessori Academy, located in downtown Wilmington, opened in 2014.
The Season Of Myths 
How can one get a copy of the entire Sussex charter application? I clicked the link provided in another blog post, but it just took me to the DOE site itself, not the actual application.
LikeLike
It is a huge application, so big they had to break it up into numerous parts. This link will bring you to all those parts: https://www.doe.k12.de.us/Page/3835
LikeLike