Students will no longer have to be content with just reading about the Chesapeake Bay if a new charter school is established.
“Some of these students may have never even seen the Bay,” said Kathy Lane, the Anne Arundel school system?s director of alternative education.
“They?re going to learn everything about it, like the science, math and literature surrounding it. We?re going to go to the Bay, eat the oysters and dissect them. It?s experiential learning.”
The school would be based on a model from Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound, a national nonprofit that emphasizes high achievement through active learning, character growth and teamwork.
The Children?s Guild, a Baltimore City-based nonprofit that offers many children services, is serving as the charter school?s sponsor, which will have a curriculum geared toward “environmentally disadvantaged students,” Lane said.
These students can come from various backgrounds, including the homeless, those who live in poverty or a single-parent home or even those who feel a regular school isn?t engaging enough, she said. “Children with barriers to learning might find this alternative education to be better,” she said.
Since it?s still a public school, though, all students can apply, even though it?s independently operated, said Andy Ross, president of the Children?s Guild.
Guild officials expect to submit the application for the charter to the school system by the end of the month.
If the school board approves the plan, the charter, which would be called Monarch Academy, is proposed to open in Glen Burnie for the 2009-2010 school year.
The idea is to open the school with about 195 elementary-age students, but plans are to expand enrollment to 600 students through the eighth grade, Ross said.
The only other charter in the county is Chesapeake Science Point Public Charter School in Hanover, which serves middle school students with a curriculum geared toward science and technology, said schools spokesman Bob Mosier.
Ross sees a charter as a wise move, considering the Base Realignment And Closure program will increase the population around Glen Burnie.
“As [the population] grows, it could create school overcrowding,” he said. “We think [a charter] is a cost-effective way of providing another school.”
Bob Leib, the county?s BRAC coordinator, has said more than 800 new elementary school students are expected to arrive with their families across the county in the next five to seven years.
