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20th January 2010

Committee to discuss charter school tonight

Posted by Jackie on January 20, 2010
posted in Education |

Prior to its biweekly meeting, the Lowell School Committee will meet at 5:30 in Council Chambers tonight to discuss options related to the potential closing of the Lowell Community Charter School, and the impact the 841 students will have on district classes next year. The meeting will be televised live on cable channel 10 (should also be available on streaming video at some point through LTC). In December, Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester indicated that he will recommend closing the school at the end of the school year; the Board of Education will vote on his recommendation at its meeting on Jan. 26 in Malden. Tonight, the school committee will get more information about the charter-school students who live in Lowell, the potential impact to the district, and various options available to the board if the charter school license is revoked. I will be on WCAP tomorrow morning—sometime after 6:40—to discuss those options briefly on the radio. I will also report my thoughts on the issue here, so stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

There are currently 4 responses to “Committee to discuss charter school tonight”

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  1. 1 On January 21st, 2010, useful tips said:

    At last, I could find this post once more. You have few [url=http://tipswift.com]useful tips[/url] for my school project. Now, I won’t forget to bookmark it. :)

  2. 2 On January 22nd, 2010, Kim said:

    I would like to comment about the comments being made about many of the charter school parents choosing the free afterschool care rather then a quality education for their children. I do not think this is a fair judgement. Many of these parents may be choosing this choice to work and feed their children. As a public school parent I must say that hours like 9:20-3:20 make it next to impossible for a parent to maintain a job. The hours lead to a need to come up with before and afterschool care. The parochial schools run 7:20-2:30 and then offer very affordable afterschool care. You could see why working parents or a single parent would choose these schools.

  3. 3 On January 22nd, 2010, Jackie said:

    Kim, I’m not sure who made those comments (?), but I agree with you that we should not make judgments about why parents choose particular schools. I don’t believe charter parents thought they were sacrificing quality education for longer days. The reality is that the extended hours of the charter school were important for many families, and something we desperately need in our district schools–not only because of parents’ work schedules, but because our children need more time on learning. I’m hoping that as a district we will be able to offer more extended-day programs for those families who want and need that service.

  4. 4 On January 23rd, 2010, Kim said:

    “I’m hoping that as a district we will be able to offer more extended-day programs for those families who want and need that service.”

    Who is responsible for applying for grants for afterschool funding?

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