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Charter School Proposal Leaves Board With Questions

Posted on: Wednesday, 25 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By Ivonne D'Amato, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

Jan. 25--BELLEFONTE -- Bellefonte Area school board members said Tuesday that a second amended proposal to open a Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania charter school in the district left them with several unanswered questions.

The original proposal given to the board for review was not approved because of questions about the proposed curriculum and surveys taken by Young Scholars that reflected the community's support for the school, which would focus on foreign languages and art.

The proposal was first amended after the school board's Dec. 13 meeting.

District superintendent James T. Masullo Jr. presented the board's comments at the meeting.

Items of concern included the school's language immersion program. The proposed curriculum said the school would include a full-language immersion program like the State College school offers, but board members said there was not enough instruction time budgeted each day to qualify the curriculum as inclusive of having such a program, Masullo said. Instead, the curriculum would qualify as a partial-immersion program.

The proposal also outlined art as a foreign language, which Masullo said was not defined by state standards as a foreign language, and the curriculum did not support a schedule that would include art instruction every day.

The board questioned the surveys originally submitted by Young Scholars officials, saying 26 of the surveys were filled out by people who did not have school-age children.

Other concerns aired included zoning issues with the proposed site at Halfmoon Hill, the "vague and ambiguous language" used in the proposal, the need to have the actual letters submitted by parents in support of the charter school in Bellefonte, and the impression that the proposal was "unorganized."

Young Scholars will have until the Feb. 14 board meeting to amend its proposal.

"We do want what is best for the children," Masullo said.

The board will have until the end of February to make a final decision.

Ivonne D'Amato can be reached at 231-4619.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Centre Daily Times, State College, Pa.

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Source: Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.)

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