SCHotline Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 28, 2008 / Charter school planning grantsFourteen planning groups awarded grants to promote the development of
quality charter school programs

COLUMBIA – Fourteen organizations from across South Carolina have
been awarded $5,000 grants to help them develop quality charter school
applications. Groups that are successful in gaining charters during 2008
will be eligible to receive grant funds up to $200,000 to assist with
initial costs associated with opening new charter schools in August
2009.

The sub-grants were awarded by the South Carolina Department of
Education from Charter School Program funds received from the U.S.
Department of Education to support the creation of additional
high-quality charter schools. The funds were also designated to assist
the Palmetto State in disseminating information about charter school
planning, design and implementation.

“High-quality charter schools let parents, teachers and community
members create innovative and flexible ways to educate children within
the public school system,” said State Superintendent of Education James
Rex. “These grants are one way that we can help community groups who
want to give this option a try.”

Charter schools are public schools, designed and operated with
significant autonomy by educators, parents, community leaders,
educational entrepreneurs and others. They are sponsored either by local
school district boards of trustees or the South Carolina Public Charter
School District’s board of trustees. The sponsoring boards then
monitor charter school quality and effectiveness.

Charter schools also operate with some freedom from local mandates,
state laws and regulations. They are designed to increase learning
opportunities for students; encourage the use of various productive
teaching methods; establish new forms of school accountability; create
professional opportunities for teachers; and assist the state in
reaching academic excellence.

In 1996, the South Carolina General Assembly approved legislation
allowing the development of charter schools within the state’s system of
public education. South Carolina’s 29 charter schools serve
approximately 5,200 public school students.

2008 sub-grantees’ mission statements

Bamberg Charter School for Academic Excellence, Grades K-5 (expanding
to K-12)
To implement recorded personalized educational programs to facilitate
student achievement utilizing educational reform that will serve as a
catalyst to provide change in the way teachers and students learn.
Target population will be students in Bamberg Districts One and Two.

Blue Ocean Charter Academy, Statewide, Grades K-12
To serve as a virtual charter school open to the entire state
population of students. To offer students the flexibility of virtual
instruction that is delivered in the comfort and safety of their own
home environment and that allows students to learn at their own pace and
with personalized support.

Carolina Preparatory Academy, North Charleston, Grades K-3 (expanding
to K-12)
To create an educational environment that is safe, nurturing,
academically rigorous, globally conscious, and promotes a culture of
college-bound students. Target population will be at-risk students
living in neighborhoods adjacent to the North Charleston Navy Yard.

Carolina Central Charter School, Aiken, Grades K4-5 (expanding to
K4-8)
To provide a challenging educational program focused on allowing
children to learn through individual projects and group collaboration.
To create a center-based learning environment that will encourage
project-guided educational experiences to develop character, a sense of
community support, and faith in their own success.

Horizon Middle Academy, Johns Island (SCPCSD), Grades 6-8
To serve students who thrive in a more individualized and holistic
setting. To provide a rigorous academic program that is relevant and
meaningful to each student, to equip each student with 21st-Century
skills for success in high school and beyond, to support genuine and
healthy relationships, and to encourage global awareness and
environmental stewardship.

Jonesville Lockhart Charter School, Union, (SCPCSD) Grades K-12
To provide a safe learning environment that enables all students to
achieve their best, while also challenging these students to become
lifelong learners, independent thinkers, respectful individuals, and
responsible citizens, thus preparing them for a 21st-Century global
economy.

Nu Vision School of Excellence, Lee, Grades 9-12
To provide a safe environment where each individual is accepted,
supported, valued and challenged to work up to their full potential. To
enable students to become totally self-aware and seamlessly integrated
in society. To offer an academically challenging, developmentally
appropriate, experiential, holistic, child-centered education to all
young people.

Riverview Charter School, Beaufort
To provide a small, nurturing setting that actively engages students in
authentic, meaningful, and integrated learning experiences. To create an
academic environment that is both joyful and rigorous, providing
students with diverse experience-based opportunities to demonstrate and
strengthen their individual intelligences and become personally,
socially, and globally responsible citizens.

S. L. Finley Alternative School, Chester, Grades 9-12
To create a center-based learning environment that will encourage
project-guided and community-based educational experiences utilizing
innovative strategies that lead to the improvement of student academic
achievement, attendance, and to motivate students to achieve their full
potential by developing faith in their own success to become actively
engaged in the learning process. The educational program will focus on
allowing children to learn through natural experiences and
investigation.

South Carolina Connections Academy, SCPCSD, Grades K-12
To provide individualized instruction tailored to the learning needs of
students throughout South Carolina who seek an alternative to the
traditional classroom. The virtual learning approach is a choice for
under-served students who have chronic illness, who are gifted or
struggling, those living in isolated rural areas with limited access to
rich curriculum resources, students with special education needs, and
children who simply learn differently.

South Carolina Virtual Charter School, SCPCSD, Grades K-12
To add a needed, innovative, research-based, and effective model of
virtual education to the state’s public education system that combines
web-based and offline lessons. To utilize technology to provide a new
and individualized South Carolina Academic Standards-based education for
students across the state.

The Apple Charter School, Charleston, Grades 3-8
To educate students in a stable, consistent single-gender environment
while preparing them for higher education and maximizing their potential
for success in an ever changing world.

West End Academy, Greenville, Grades K5-5
To provide a quality educational experience that will develop and
enhance the intellectual and artistic abilities of its students in an
inquisitive, child-centered environment. To offer a curriculum that is
inquiry-based, using project-based learning that integrates academic and
artistic competencies for real-world applications.

William Edward School of Technology, Charleston, Grades K-8 (expanding
to K-12)
To promote technology as an avenue for success among students. To
increase high school and college graduation rates, employment
opportunities, masterly levels of technology usage, and community
awareness. To equip students with the skills necessary to succeed in any
industry, at any post-secondary institution, and/or with any
entrepreneurial endeavor.