Crane sets meeting for charter school comments
A meeting will be held by the Crane Elementary School District on Tuesday for the public to share comments on plans to move forward with a district-sponsored charter school.
The meeting will start off with a work session for the charter school planning committee to make an informal presentation about its ideas thus far. Immediately after the work session, the board will open up the meeting for public comment.
The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at Pueblo Elementary School, 2803 W. 20th St.
Crane Superintendent Bob Klee said the curriculum for the proposed school, projected to open in August 2013, would have a foundation on STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) principles.
The charter school committee, made up of district staff and members from the community, recommended that the charter school be placed at H.L. Suverkrup Elementary School, 1590 S. Avenue C, as it is currently has the most extra space.
“Suverkrup is actually designed to hold 700 students, and right now we have 450 students on that campus,” said Klee. “The committee has looked at that and that's our most logical campus with space available for this.
“Our first choice was to try and find a location that's not one of our actual buildings, but it has to be within our school boundaries and we simply were just not able to find anyplace to do it. So our second choice was to start to look at our different campuses.”
He noted that if the board approved the recommendation to proceed with the school, there would be two schools operating on the same campus under the same calendar year, but with most likely different drop-off and pick-up times. Klee said they plan to open the school offering first- through fourth-grade levels with the intention of adding more grades in the future.
The district-sponsored charter school, which the committee has been calling the Crane Math and Science Academy, would be open for enrollment to any student throughout Yuma County.
Sarah Womer can be reached at swomer@yumasun.com or 539-6858. Find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/YSSarahWomer or on Twitter at @YSSarahWomer.
