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Published: Tuesday, Jul. 21, 2009 / Updated: Monday, Jul. 20, 2009 06:17 PM

Charter school plan approved for York Prep

Students in York County can apply to academy, slated to open in August 2010

York County families will soon have another school where they can choose to send their children.

South Carolina's Public Charter School District recently approved York Preparatory Academy's application for a charter, signaling the school's founders may move ahead with their plan to open the campus in August 2010 in The Gates subdivision off Eastview Road in Rock Hill.

At first, founder Craig Craze said, it will be open to students in kindergarten through ninth grade with a new grade added yearly until the school is K-12. Anyone in York County can apply to attend. The first year's enrollment would be limited to roughly 1,100 students.

A lottery will decide who gets in.

Craze said the approval is a relief after waiting through a process that made it difficult to prepare to launch the school.

“You can only do so much on a tentative basis,” he said. “Now the floodgates are open.”

After receiving their charter, Craze said “we all kind of laughed and said, ‘Now we can really get to work.'”

York Prep's five-member academic committee plans to have the bulk of the school's curriculum ready by the fall, committee member Erin Neurohr said.

Their plan is to research programs that have proved successful in other states and incorporate them in South Carolina's list of mandated teaching standards.

Neurohr, who taught third and fourth grade in Boston and Charlotte for nine years, said she heard about York Prep last year and was impressed with the mission statement.

“I was very encouraged to hear that (teachers) have the ability to make decisions about what they want,” she said. “It's not a huge bureaucracy.”

Anyone in South Carolina can apply to open a charter school, either through a local school district or the state's Public Charter School District. The schools are public and funded with tax dollars. They don't have to report to a local school board and are free from some of the constraints imposed on public school districts.

In exchange for public money and independence, charter schools must meet accountability standards. In South Carolina, a school's charter is reviewed every few years and can be revoked if the school doesn't meet certain guidelines.

Proponents of charter schools say they provide parents with options and force traditional public schools to compete for students.

“We don't see them as competition,” said Rock Hill schools spokeswoman Elaine Baker. “Parents are looking for alternatives, and it's good that those are available in Rock Hill. We're in the business of education. That's what we want for all children: a great education wherever they can get it.”

The idea behind York Prep, Craze said, is to provide a public alternative to education in York County.

The hope is to launch a school with classes of no more than 25 students, where parents are deeply involved, teachers have a lot of leeway and administrators are few.

Parents would be required to sign a contract promising to get involved. Students would sign a behavior agreement stating that they are there to learn. Excessive discipline problems would get them expelled.

Teachers would get flexibility in planning lessons.

Two administrators would oversee a campus divided into separate wings for elementary, middle and high school.

There would be no cafeteria. Students would bring their lunches.