By LISA ROSKELLEY
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- Heated discussion and hours-long debate concluded with the approval for a charter school to open in downtown Ogden come August.
The Ogden Preparatory Academy is described as a dual-language, kindergarten-through-eighth-grade program intended to be placed in downtown Ogden. The school would give Hispanic students currently bussed from the area to other schools an option to attend a neighborhood school.
An application submitted in February by Academica Corporation, a Florida-based educational management firm, was approved Wednesday evening after an emotional discussion about the concept of charter schools and their role in an educational system the district is revamping.
"We're going to reinvent everything we're doing," Ogden School Board member Will Ormond said. "I want you to know we know there's a problem and we're going to do something about it," he continued, fighting back emotion.
Parents stood chastising the board and the teachers' union president Beverly Zimmerman-Davis for putting their own agendas before the good the school could bring to the district's students.
"We can't make teachers be accountable in this community," said Catina Martinez-Hadley, who has two children in Ogden schools and wants them to attend the academy.
Emotionally addressing the board she asked, "Who do you work for? Do you work for the teachers' union or do you work for me?"p> The board had, up until this time, said it was reluctant to consider the application considering the facilities issues the district is currently trying to wade through.
Another Ogdenite stood in support of the charter school even though her 4-year-old daughter has not entered the school system yet.
"In December we put our house up for sale because we do not want to send our children to school in this district," said Nicki Crook, who said she represents 15 other couples who are looking to find alternative education for their children.
Ogden city's economic development director Stuart Reid also weighed in on the issue, pleading with the board to move forward with this school as part of the city's Renaissance movement.
"I ask you to try it. If it doesn't work, stop it. If it does work, model it," he said. "Then we will send the message: Ogden is on the move."p> On the other side of the aisle, Davis, also a Mound Fort Middle School teacher, said the teachers' union isn't necessarily against charter schools but wants the teachers there to be represented by her group.
But no such promises were made in the vague motion made by board president Kathryn Dimick who set the charter school in motion for fall opening, but leaves much to be debated including the adoption of a district policy on charter schools.
"I don't even know what's in the application because I haven't read it," Dimick said. "We need a charter policy."p> The motion was unanimously approved by the board. "I like the idea, I'm supportive of it and I think we can make it work," said Mike Ulrich, board member. "Our employees are important to us, but they are adults, if they don't want to go work for (the charter school) they don't have to. . . . We need to give students a choice."
You can reach reporter Lisa Roskelley at 625-4229 or lroskelley@standard.net.