Possibility Prep Public Charter School

Possibility Prep Public Charter School officials said Tuesday that they’ve gotten a stay of execution, after lawyers struck a tentative deal to hold off revoking the embattled school’s charter until the Maryland State Department of Education can review an appeal by the school.

Officials and parents had been stunned Monday night after the Prince George’s County Board of Education voted to close the county’s only all-boys middle school at the end of its first year.

The board voted 6-1 to revoke the Upper Marlboro school’s charter agreement, after schools Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. highlighted the issues of enrollment and the science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum, which he called deficient...

Board Member Henry P. Armwood Jr. (Dist. 7) said that while the board supports the concept of a STEM-focused school, such an undertaking cannot afford to suffer from the upheaval Possibility Prep experienced during the first half of the school year. Many parents pulled their students out of the school, and the school’s first principal left in December...

Teresa Gerchman, vice president for educational services at Edison Learning, the school’s management company, said Board Member Rosalind A. Johnson’s (Dist. 1) statement that the county had to provide computer hardware to the school because Edison didn’t was outright false...

1 comment:

The Perimeter Primate said...

"Embattled Upper Marlboro charter school won't open this year." Gazette.Net: Maryland Community News Online, 8/11/2011

Excerpt:

An embattled charter school in Upper Marlboro for boys will be closed for the upcoming school year — despite a pending appeal to restore its charter.

The Prince George’s County Board of Education voted in June to revoke Possibility Prep Public Charter School’s charter agreement, over concerns about whether the school could meet enrollment targets and whether its advertised science, technology, engineering and mathematics curriculum had been fully implemented...

Link:

http://www.gazette.net/article/20110811/NEWS/708119867/1010/embattled-upper-marlboro-charter-school-won-t-open-this-year&template=gazette