Charter Board Approves Six Applications for New Schools

The D.C. Public Charter School Board has approved six new charter schools, the board announced yesterday.

Out of 13 applications submitted in April, the following six were selected: Achievement Preparatory Academy, an elementary and middle school; Colin L. Powell International, a pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school; Excel Academy, an all-girls, early intervention school that covers preschool through eighth grade; Imagine Southeast, which includes preschool through eighth grade; Thea Bowman Preparatory, a middle school; and Washington Yu Ying, a Chinese immersion school that includes pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.

All the schools, selected at the board's monthly meeting Monday night, have to meet a range of academic and other conditions by the five-member appointed board before opening in fall 2008.

Also at the meeting, the charter board placed Hospitality High on probation, a status one step from shutdown. Charter board Chairman Thomas A. Nida said Hospitality had not provided documentation about whether it would continue to be a charter school or join the D.C. public school system and move into Roosevelt Senior High School in Northwest.

Emily Durso, president of the Hotel Association of Washington, D.C., which operates the school, said Hospitality officials met with the charter board last month and followed up by giving several requested documents, including enrollment information and the construction plan for renovations at Roosevelt, by June 15.

Durso said that the school plans to move into the third floor of Roosevelt and that construction will be complete by Aug. 20. Despite the school's planned location, Durso said Hospitality would remain a charter school. School officials did not receive expected resources from the city that were needed for Hospitality to become part of the public school system.

Durso said the school is conducting interviews for its principal vacancy and plans to have someone in place by July 1. She said the previous principal, Peter N. Smith, decided not to reapply for his job after the entire staff was asked to do so.