PLG charter school in the works
Yesterday was pretty mixed for my kid and me. On the down side, I accidentally threw him out of his stroller onto the subway platform concrete. (He cried for a minute but, fortunately, no harder than he does when I take paper towels away from him.)
On the upside, I heard that some Maple Street School parents, headed up by Renee Ciccone, are hoping to start a charter school in the neighborhood. If all goes according to plan, the Lefferts Gardens Charter School, an elementary and middle school focused on environmental science, will open in 2010. The organizers are in the process of applying for approval from the Board of Education. If they succeed, the City would likely place the school in one of the two pre-existing public schools in PLG; the new school would then share the building with the old.
The charter school would start small. As the Maple Street School Newsletter reports:
During its inaugural year, the Lefferts Garden Charter School would have 100 seats divided evenly between kindergarten and first graders, adding 50 new students and a new grade each year thereafter until the school has 450 students, grades kindergarten through eight.
Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden would partner with the school, helping it with its mission to use environmental science as a tool for teaching math, reading, and other basic subjects.
In order to pull this off, planners are enlisting volunteers from the neighborhood to help out. In a couple of weeks, there will be an open information forum at K-Dog so that neighbors can find out more about what's in the works and how to get involved. We'll post the date and time shortly, so stay tuned...
I would very much like to get in touch with the Lefferts Gardens Charter School planning team and help with this project. What is the best way to contact them?
Posted by: Rob Viola | March 16, 2009 at 09:24 AM
If you'd like to send a note to Renee Ciccone, you can email me at brooklynite282 at gmail and I'll forward it to her. (I'm not sure whether they're ready to post contact info in a public forum.)
Posted by: carrie | March 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM
I'm excited about this forward-looking project. Please let us know about the information forum at K-Dog.
Posted by: Callia | March 16, 2009 at 12:13 PM
Sounds great! How about a high school to go with it!!??!!
Posted by: dt | March 17, 2009 at 07:07 PM
Great idea, dt. Why don't you start one?
Posted by: carrie | March 18, 2009 at 07:59 AM
SOUNDS GREAT HOW WILL ONE CHILD GET IN. LOOKING FORWARD TO HELPING JUST LET ME KNOW!!! OK
Posted by: SHIRLEY FOSTER | June 24, 2009 at 04:33 PM