FOCUS D.C. Public Charter School Bulletin

March 30, 2005

Nineteen Apply for 2006 Charters

The D.C. Public Charter School Board announced yesterday that by Monday’s deadline it had received 19 applications to open charter schools in the fall of 2006. The total exceeds last year’s application number of 15 and is the largest applicant group since 1997, the Board’s first year of operation. The Board of Education, the District’s other chartering authority, has called a moratorium on chartering and will not be taking applications for fall 2006.

Among the applicants to the DCPCSB are two “Latin” schools, a school for boys, a boarding school, a sports academy, and a family literacy program.

Many of the applicant groups participated in FOCUS’s comprehensive charter school startup program, which features a two-day intensive school design workshop and one-on-one help from academic, business, and facilities experts.

A panel of DCPCSB experts will review the applications and interview the applicants. Public hearings on the applications will be held on May 16 and 17; the Board will announce its decisions on June 20.

Seven of last year’s 15 applicants made it to the “conditional approval” stage and are likely to open next fall. The remaining eight applicants were rejected. All seven of the successful applicants had gone through FOCUS’s program.

Since its inception, the DCPCSB has approved approximately a third of the applications submitted to it.

Friends of Choice in Urban Schools
1530 16th Street, NW #104
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 387-0405 phone
(202) 667-3798 fax
www.focusdc.org