Charter School Hearing

There was an update on the Charter school application in the News-Gazette today. Previous posts on the charter school: arguments for and against. Application news and data behind the recent push here. All charter posts here. From the N-G today:

Public hearing slated on charter school proposal
The Unit 4 school board will hold a public hearing about a newly proposed charter school in less than a month.

Under state law, the district had 40 days from the time founders of the North Champaign Academy submitted their application, which happened on Feb. 26, to add this event to the schedule.

“We anticipate the hearing date will be April 9, 2018 and we will formally notify the applicants in writing about this date and of the protocol for this process,” President Chris Kloeppel said at Monday night’s school board meeting. “Within 30 days of the hearing, the board will make a determination.

“We anticipate that decision will be made on April 23, 2018.”

As proposed, the charter school would be located at 1400 W. Anthony Drive, target low-income, low achieving students in Champaign and be funded largely by Unit 4. 

Other Unit 4 updates from the same N-G article:

In other news Monday:

— After agreeing to spend $3.4 million on a building that will house administrative staff and others, the board signed off on a $51,487 communications system for 502 W. Windsor Road. That cost covers a Toshiba IPedge system, including installation and warranty...

— The Windsor location was also part of another bid approved Monday night when the board OK’d a $51,597 bid to outfit several district buildings with network and wireless equipment from information technology company CDW-G. Other buildings that would receive the new equipment include the district’s transportation, administration, curriculum and Columbia centers...

— Summer grounds workers can expect a boost in pay after board members approved raising laborers’ wages from a “no longer competitive” rate of $9 per hour to $13 per hour...

 — Staff at Franklin Middle School will be the beneficiaries of $85,214 worth of professional development and resources from Northern Illinois University after the board approved the financial agreement.

The district plans to use funding from a five year $9.6 million magnet grant to pay for the services NIU would provide, including multi-day training at a STEAM retreat in July as well as planning and observation visits for Franklin teachers.

Full article here.