Bedford could host new charter school

Early planning stages:
Polaris Academy for Gifted Education is seeking approval from state.

By GREG KWASNIK

Union Leader Correspondent

BEDFORD — New Hampshire’s gifted children may soon have a new place to learn if a planned charter school gets state approval.

The Polaris Academy for Gifted Education is still in the early planning stages and is seeking approval from the New Hampshire Department of Education, said Jennifer Minicucci, one of the school’s founders.

Minicucci, and co-founder Tia Fogarty, both of Bedford, have ambitious plans for the academy, which would serve children in the elementary grades.

Minicucci said there is a strong need for educational alternatives among gifted children, who often struggle with depression and bullying at mainstream schools.

“A lot of these kids are not identified correctly and they’re not doing well,” Minicucci said. “They’re miserable, their grades are not good, their teachers don’t understand them, they’re having difficulty making friends.”

At Polaris Academy, students would work in small learning clusters organized by ability, rather than age. The school would likely begin operations with 30 students, with plans to expand to a second location when the student body exceeds 120 students.

But the school must secure approval from the state before it can open. Minicucci said she and other school officials will likely meet with representatives from the DOE within the next few months.

To win approval from the DOE, the school must prove it will meet a crucial need for students who would otherwise not succeed in a mainstream school. Judging from the excited response on Polaris Academy’s Facebook page, Minicucci said, that need is real.

“We’ve gotten a lot of requests — ‘When do you open?’ ‘Where are you going to be located?’ ‘How do I get my kid in?’ ‘What is the admissions procedure?’ — all that kind of stuff, and the school doesn’t even exist yet,” Minicucci said. “But we know it’s been a significant need for a long time.”

Because Polaris Academy is still in the early development stages, many of those questions can’t be answered yet. But Minicucci hopes to open the school, which will be located somewhere between Concord and Nashua, as early as next fall.

Because charter schools are state-funded, students will not have to pay tuition to attend Polaris Academy, Minicucci said.

When the school opens, it will work with surrounding school districts to identify children who would succeed at the academy, including students from lower socioeconomic families and those with special needs.

Minicucci said the school will overturn popular misconceptions about the term ‘gifted.’ “Gifted is sort of a misnomer in a way,” Minicucci said. “I think most parents of high academic potential kids wish there was another term because it does kind of give off sort of an elitist vibe. But really we find that it’s kind of a different category of special needs.” Miniccuci has had her own experience with charter schools. Two of her children attend the Academy for Science and Design Charter School in Merrimack.

Enrolling her children in that school has allowed them to flourish in an environment that plays to their academic and social strengths, Miniucci said, adding that her 11-yearold son feels at home there.

“Its been a good environment for him,” Minicucci said. “He wasn’t very happy where he was before and he felt like he was a sore thumb. So this has worked.”