Ledyard Charter School: Lebanon

Area Located:  Lebanon, NH

Ages/Grades: 9-12

Contact: Mark Harris, Superintendent

Web Site:  Click Here

Location. Lebanon is way on the west side of NH at the intersection of 91 (just over the CT river in Vermont) and 89. It's about 35 minutes north of Claremont and abutts Hanover on its north side. It's in the Upper Valley, near Dartmouth College. So I don't know what region you'd put it in but on our map it would be over there on the mid-west part of NH.

Status: Authorized by the State Board of Education March 14, 2007.

Planning to open at Lebanon College in Lebanon, NH. Planning to open September 2007 with 50 students and grow to 110 over the 5 years of the charter. This is a state-authorized, district charter school. The charter school will have its own director and board of trustees, but one member from the Lebanon School Board will be appointed to sit on the charter school board.

Students Served:

"Teachers at the charter academy will teach across disciplines and act as advisors for the students, who will each be assigned an adult mentor. Students will have individual learning plans and obtain community internships. The internships add to the learning experience in a hands-on way while reinforcing the school's emphasis on community involvement and awareness, according to the charter application.(excerpt from the Union Leader)."

Distinguishing Features:

• A strong standards-based academic core supported by 21st century skills
• Real world application and community internships
• The support of a school-based advocate throughout the four year program
• An academic audit that includes baseline assessments, goals, and frequent monitoring and re-testing
• Individual learning plans
• Quarterly student led parent conferences
• Juried portfolio student exhibitions
• Increased student motivation and connection to learning

Pemi-Baker Area Charter School

Area Located:  Plymouth, NH

Students Served:  N/A

Contact:  Ethel Gaides

Ages/Grades:  n/a

Web Site:  n/a

By June, a site assessment and facility study should be complete and a website will be developed to enhance community involvement. In April and May, committee members will visit charter schools and update the public at various meetings. In June, committee members will complete the pre-planning project and submit the school’s charter for approval.

Sandwich Charter School

Area Located:  Plymouth, NH

Students Served:  N/A

Contact:

Ages/Grades:  All students K-6

Web Site:  n/a

Vision
A school infused with the musical and visual arts collaborating with one or more prominent music festivals, university and regional craftsmen is the cornerstone of the vision desired by a diverse group of Lakes Region residents.

Sandwich Central School currently is a small kindergarten through sixth grade school in transition. Responding to declining enrollment is providing an opportunity for the entire community to examine what we do and how we might become a school which draws parents to attend. Teachers, parents and townspeople are investigating several possibilities including proposing a warrant article to reopen the existing Sandwich Central School as a district-authorized charter or open-enrollment school. We are also looking at the possibility of reopening the existing Sandwich Central School as a public charter school operated by an independent board of directors

Information to Support Charter Design
The Pre-Charter Planning group will look for “best practices” at other institutions to help create our new school. The infusion of the arts will look closely at models such as Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) in the Tucson (AZ) Unified School District; Learning to Read Through the Arts in the New York City School System; and Spectra+ Arts in Ohio. All of the cited programs included a research component that showed statistically significant gains in student achievement as measured against control groups that did not participate in the different programs.

Contact: John Hansen, Sandwich Central School