Charter School Proposal Takes Shape in Calvert County

What started 18 months ago as five mothers sitting around a kitchen table and talking about their children's education has snowballed into a nearly 400-page proposal for the first charter school in Calvert County.

Next month, the Calvert County Board of Education will decide whether to sanction the proposed Bay Arts & Sciences Public Charter School, scheduled to open next August in Prince Frederick with 108 students in grades 6-8. If approved, the second charter school in Southern Maryland would add a grade level every time students move up, so it would include a middle school and high school by 2012.

Southern Maryland's first charter school, Chesapeake Public Charter School in St. Mary's County, is under construction and set to open Aug. 22. The school was supposed to open Aug. 16, but there was a delay in running a waterline to the building, school official Stacy Maffei said.

The founders of the proposed Calvert charter school submitted a detailed application to the school board in May and have signed a contract for a $750,000 piece of wooded land on Hallowing Point Road. They expect to begin construction in January.

The founders said they aren't dissatisfied with Calvert County schools, but they want a school that gives students more individual attention and that provides hands-on learning experiences, including outdoor activities and laboratory experiments. They also want a focus on local environmental topics such as the Chesapeake Bay.

"Calvert County has excellent public schools, but not every student learns the same way," said Karen Mittelman, chairman of the charter school's founding board. "There's a misunderstanding among a lot of teachers and community members that charters detract from the public schools. Well, we are a part of the public school system."

Brenda Damario, another of the school's founders, said she hopes the school will provide a better atmosphere for her fifth-grade son, who becomes restless during long lectures.

"He has a lot of interest in science and that, but boy he has no interest if you're going to lecture him," she said. "The idea of doing a huge amount of hands-on learning just makes a whole lot of sense for me, for him in particular."

Charter school founders are hoping to secure a $4 million loan to purchase land and build the school, Mittelman said. They have raised $50,000 toward paying back that loan and have pledged to raise $150,000 more over the next two years, she said.

After the initial costs are paid, the school district's per-pupil funding will cover the charter school's cost, Mittelman said.

School board members, who await recommendations from their staff members, said that their initial impressions of the charter school's proposal and founders were positive, but that it was too early to tell whether they would approve the school.

"I think they put a whole lot of time in it," said Robert Gray, president of the Calvert County Board of Education. "What little discussion we've had with staff is that these are real competent people."

Deborah Pulley, Calvert County's executive director of school operations, has been reviewing the proposal. Pulley said relations with the charter school founders have been good.

"They've been very, very good to work with," she said. "I've been very pleased with the level of communications with the charter school."