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Three organizations will seek approval from a state commission to start the first charter schools in Alabama.
The Alabama Public Charter School Commission on Tuesday will interview organizations from Huntsville and Mobile and one based in Miami.
The commission has held public hearings and received hundreds of pages in application documents from the organizations, which hope to open schools next year.
The Alabama Legislature passed a bill last year authorizing charter schools for the first time. Alabama was the 43rd state to pass a charter school law.
Charter schools are publicly funded but have more autonomy than traditional public schools in finance, personnel, scheduling, curriculum, instruction and procurement.
The flexibility is intended to encourage innovative programs that serve some students better than traditional schools.
The three applicants:
- Edge Preparatory School in Huntsville would be primarily intended for students zoned for elementary schools in lower-income areas.
- The Mobile Area Education Foundation plans to start the Accel Day and Evening Academy, a high school for students 16 and older who have dropped out or fallen behind.
- The Sports Leadership and Management Foundation, or SLAM, based in Miami, plans to start a school in the Huntsville area for pre-kindergarten through second grade that will use learning programs based on sports themes with a heavy focus on science and technology.
Accel Day and Evening Academy
The Mobile Area Education Foundation has supported public schools for more than 25 years and invested more than $25 million, according to its application.
The foundation works with the Mobile County school system to offer evening classes for students who have fallen behind or dropped out. But that program can serve only about 100 students.
Mobile Area Education Foundation CEO Carolyn Akers said many more students could benefit through a charter school designed for that population.
An estimated 1,000 high school students in the Mobile area are either not on track to graduate or have already dropped out, the foundation's application says.
Mobile Area Education Foundation Chief Operating Officer Jeremiah Newell said Accel students will pursue not only a high school diploma but additional college and career preparation with dual enrollment in Bishop State Community College and apprenticeships.
"It's a tremendous lift," Newell said. "But we don't think we should be setting any lower goal than that."
Accel will evaluate incoming students to identify those who can't read at an eighth-grade level or understand basic math. Those students will take part in "Success Seminars" until they master those entry-level skills for high school, Newell said.
Students at the academy will take the majority of their classes through a computer-based learning platform and work with teachers in small groups, Newell said.
Students will also participate in group projects.
The school hopes to enroll 300 students initially.
Sports Leadership and Management Foundation
The SLAM Foundation, which operates charter schools in Miami, West Palm Beach, Fla., and Henderson, Nevada, wants to start a school in Huntsville that will place a heavy emphasis on science and technology.
"It's a beautiful place and it will be a wonderful way to extend our reach into a state where we don't have a footprint yet," Rene Ruiz, chair of the foundation's governing board, said.
The school would be initially for pre-kindergarten through second grade and later expand to fifth grade, according to the application.
Ruiz said it would be the SLAM Foundation's first elementary school.
He said the Huntsville area, with its strong ties to the space program and defense industry, is "one of the most educated spots on the earth" and will demand a rigorous curriculum.
Ruiz said SLAM's school in Miami serves a poor section of the city and more than 90 percent of the students are minorities.
He said the school, in its fourth year, has been able to achieve more than a 90 percent graduation rate.
Ruiz said SLAM tries to reach students through their passion for sports.
"Sports is always weaved into the concept to get kids to buy into wanting to learn," he said.
Edge Preparatory School
The school will start as K-4 and be geared for students from low-income sections of Huntsville that are predominantly black or Hispanic and where a significant number of households are headed by a single woman, according to the executive summary of the school's 860-page application packet.
Last year, only 20 percent of third-graders zoned for Title I schools in Huntsville tested as proficient in reading, according to the Edge application. Forty-one percent of third-graders in those schools tested as proficient in math.
Title I schools are those that qualify for certain federal funds because they serve low-income communities.
Edge Preparatory School's goal will be "to close the academic achievement gap, the school choice opportunity gap, and the cultural literacy gap that exists for too many of these children," the application says.
Edge plans to expand to a K-8 school by the fifth year and eventually to a K-12 school.
The applications for Edge, SLAM and Accel are available on the state Department of Education website.
The Alabama Public Charter School Commission, chaired by former state school Superintendent Ed Richardson, will interview representatives of Edge at 10:30 a.m., SLAM at 12:30 p.m., and Accel at 1:30 p.m.
The commission is expected to then deliberate and vote on the applications.
If the applications are approved, the organizations will then go through a year of planning and training with the Alabama Department of Education.
Logan Searcy, an administrator with the state DOE who is coordinating the collaboration with the Charter School Commission, said charter school organizations have to function similarly in some ways to local school boards, with all the state and federal requirements that go with that.
If the applicants are approved, the Charter School Commission will monitor them to see that they implement the school design, organizational plan and financial plan spelled out in their applications, Searcy said.
The charter school law allowed local school systems to apply to become authorizers of charter schools, in addition to the state Charter School Commission.
So far, only the city school systems in Birmingham and Athens have applied to become authorizers, but more are expected to do so.
The Birmingham and Athens systems have not yet finished developing their processes for accepting charter school applications.
The law capped the number of start-up charter schools in the state at 10 per year.
Emily Schultz, a policy advocate for the National Alliance of Charter Schools who lobbied for the law, said three is a good number for Alabama in the first year.
"This is about quality schools, and I would rather have a few high-quality schools than a bunch of mediocre schools," Schultz said.
Although charter schools have more autonomy than regular public schools, they will still be governed by federal and state laws on safety, health and non-discrimination. They are required to give students the same standardized tests as other public schools.
They will receive the state and local per pupil funding as regular public schools, except for certain restricted or designated local funds.
They can also receive federal funds and private funding.
They must be open to all students who wish to enroll until they reach capacity.
Edited at 6:46 p.m. on Sept. 20 to correct name of Edge Preparatory School.