Thr, Nov 27, 2003
By TANNA BARRY
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
tbarry@standard.net
FARMINGTON -- A group seeking more education options expects to have a proposal for a new charter school to the Davis School District in about 10 days.
"This country was based on competition," said Jed Stevenson, who works for Academica Corp., which manages charter schools and is helping Davis residents through the charter school application and start-up process.
"Education has never followed that, but now charter schools are growing like crazy."
At the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year, Stevenson said there were 19 charter schools open throughout Utah. Nationally, the U.S. Department of Education estimates nearly 3,000 charter schools are currently operating with about 700,000 students.
Stevenson said opening this new charter school will eliminate overcrowding in district schools, give parents more involvement in their children's education and offer a bilingual education of English and Spanish.
"Charter schools offer choice," Stevenson said. "They can offer a private school-type setting at a public school price."
The Davis School District has received only two applications for charter schools and both have been denied.
District Spokesman Chris Williams said the applications weren't approved for different reasons. The mix of problems included not upholding state laws regarding issues like special education, not offering anything new to the district or being incomplete.
"The board isn't against charter schools, we just haven't been presented with an application that the board felt great about," Williams said. "It's typically a case where there are a lot of questions left unanswered."
The group of residents preparing the current charter school application say they want to avoid unanswered questions. They've been working on the application for more than a year.
Currently, the group's application is about 80 percent finished, and Stevenson expects to get it to the district in about 10 days.
He isn't concerned there aren't any charter schools in the district and even said he is confident the district will approve the application because the proposed school would fill a need of teaching children both Spanish and English.
"Somebody has to be a pioneer," Stevenson said. "That is who we are. We would have the first charter school in the district, but others would follow."
While they know they want a school patterned after the Ogden Preparatory Academy in size and offer