LEXINGTON PARK - The Chesapeake Public Charter School (CPCS) group has decided to reply to the Board of Education's refusal to approve its project by taking two actions. 1) The group will prepare and submit to the Board of Education a new charter school application, and 2) the group will appeal the Board's denial of its earlier project to the State Board of Education.

At a meeting on March 23, the CCPS group struggled with the denial and how to deal with it. They considered four options: 1) dropping their effort to have a public charter school in St. Mary's County 2) going forward with a private school 3) appealing the Board of Education's decision, or 4) submitting a new application.

After some vigorous discussion, the group realized they were not yet ready to stop their effort to have a public charter school. Group member Kate Sullivan said the group rejected the idea of creating a private school because they realized that they were not trying to create a school to serve children of wealthy parents who could pay private school tuition, but rather to offer new opportunities to public school students, especially including those who have no alternatives for education. In the end, she said, they decided that appealing the decision and submitting a new application were not mutually exclusive, and decided to do both.

Sullivan said she was saddened by the Board of Education's inability to see the Charter School as a way to ease the crowding of its elementary schools. She pointed out that Leonardtown Elementary School will not be ready for students for at least two more years and will cost $14,000,000 or more, while the Charter School could have opened by fall of '06 and removed 80 or more students from the public school rolls with no capital expenditures. “They seem to think of us as a private school,” Sullivan said, “We don't agree with that assessment.”

When informed of the CCPS decision, Board President Cathy Allen said, “I think they are within their right to do both things. We will take it one day at a time.”