Sussex Montessori School Takes 2nd Stab At Application To Delaware DOE, Looking For Fall 2019 Opening

Only one application came in for a new charter school this year in Delaware.  It is the same one that applied last year but that school withdrew their application shortly after.  Sussex Montessori School is going for it again this year.

The proposed school is looking for 260 students in grades K-3 and by year four they are hoping to have 455 students in K-6.  There is only one charter school in Sussex County, Sussex Academy.  There are some very familiar names in their founders list and interested parties with a board consisting of nine people.  It sounds like they have their ducks in a row with this application.

What bothered me about their Executive Summary was this line:

It is clear that the traditional public schools are not working well for many children in Sussex County.

They based this on… what else… standardized test scores.  We will NEVER learn, will we?  This charter school isn’t even open and they are already assuming they can drive those Smarter Balanced test scores up.  I know, whether you agree with this or not, you have to kiss the ring of the Delaware DOE by promising higher achievement on the not-so-Smarter Balanced Assessment.  Shouldn’t there be more to education than this horrible measurement?

Sussex Montessori School does have three enrollment preferences in their application: siblings of students already enrolled, children of staff members, and children of the school’s founders.

The school is projecting a little less than 22% of their funding will come from local school districts for each year they are open.

To read the entire application and all the attachments, please go here.  The leadership team of Sussex Montessori School will have their first meeting with the Delaware Charter School Accountability Committee on January 24th.

 

 

Will Sussex County See A Montessori Charter School In The Future?

Sussex County in Delaware could have their second charter school in the coming years in the form of another Delaware Montessori charter.  This hint was given at, of all places, a Christina School District Board of Education meeting.

Timing is everything as they say and part of that is being at the right place at the right time.  During public comment at the Christina board meeting yesterday, a gentleman with what appeared to be a national Montessori movement (my apologies for not having the exact information on his role) spoke in support of Christina’s Montessori program.  An action item on the board’s agenda, which failed to pass, could have closed the program in the district.  But during the man’s public comment, he talked about Montessori programs in Delaware.  He indicated if Christina did not renew the program, Delaware would be the first state in the country to see a failed Montessori program.  He spoke about the popularity of First State Montessori Academy, a charter school in downtown Wilmington.  He also said the Christina program serves students in the Newark area.  But he also said there is an application in the works for a Sussex County Montessori charter school.

Nothing is showing up on the Delaware Dept. of Education’s website for ANY submitted charter school applications.  The deadline for new charter applications for the 2018-2019 school year is January 3rd, 2017.  I will certainly keep checking to see if any applications do show up.