Union Leader, The/New Hampshire Sunday News (Manchester, NH)
District charter school will take in at-risk students
PACE Career Academy:
The goal is to give an education to Pembroke-area students who might otherwise become dropouts.
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By DAN O’BRIEN
Union Leader Correspondent
PEMBROKE — A charter high school could be coming to Pembroke.
School Administration Unit 53 officials confirm a plan is in the works, and they’ll be asking participants of the annual Pembroke School District meeting for project approval March 5. Local and state school officials have given the plan their blessing.
The proposed charter school would be called PACE Career Academy and would take in about nine struggling students from Pembroke Academy high school in its first year of operation.
“These are probably the most at-risk kids,” Pembroke Academy Headmaster Michael Reardon said.
If approved, PACE would likely be the first district charter school in New Hampshire. Because it’s a district charter school as opposed to a state charter school, it’s allowed to charge tuition to districts that send students to the school and give priority to SAU 53 students who want to attend.
The school would have a director and board of trustees separate from Pembroke Academy.
The Department of Education has approved $613,000 to fund the charter school for the first two years. Beyond that, the school plans to take in more students and would receive funding by charging tuition to the student’s original school districts.
“Over time, we’d increase our population,” Reardon said. “At first to probably 20 kids, then maybe going up to 40 or 45 kids.”
A location for the charter school has not been decided and SAU 53 officials are waiting for approval by the school district meeting before choosing one.
PACE is an acronym for Pembroke, Allenstown, Chichester and Epsom, which are the four towns that send their high school students to Pembroke Academy.
The federal government awarded $11.6 million to the Department of Education to allocate to new charter schools in New Hampshire, according to Roberta Tenney, an administrator for the department. The Granite State is nearing the end of a 20year pilot program to open 20 new charter schools, with about five left to go.
The Strong Foundations Charter School in Pembroke, an elementary charter school, is one of those, Tenney said. Proposals for new charter schools have been made recently in Manchester, Nashua, Newport and Bedford.
“They’re mission-driven schools that provide an opportunity for students to learn in a different way,” Tenney said.
The Pembroke warrant article that would allow the charter school to open asks voters to transfer about $72,000 from the school district’s budget to the charter school. That money would fund tuition of nine Pembroke Academy students who will attend PACE.
Reardon said PACE would address Pembroke Academy’s drop-out rate by putting a strong emphasis on technology and careers, allowing students to work at a job or internship half the day. He said PA’s drop-out rate 10 years ago was 8 percent, and now it’s 1.8 percent, or about 18 students per year.
“Our goal is to get every kid who walks through our door a diploma,” Reardon said. “These last 18 are the toughest to get through.”
