ABC's of Charter Schools

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ABC's of Charter Schools

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Examples
Maine Educators Working with Children at Risk: 
Potential Charter Schools In Action

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The New School

 Kennebunkport
The Carlton Project Presque Isle
The Community School Camden
Cobscook Community Learning Center Lubec
The REAL School Windham
Cultivating Community Portland

The Carleton Project  Presque Isle

5 Years of Experience!

          If there were charter schools in Maine, we would look very much like one.  The Carlton Project has served eighty-nine students throughout Aroostook County since January 2001.  With a waiting list since it opened, the school recently began an outreach program in Houlton.

We successfully serve a need in our community to address the educational needs of a population of young people who have not been successful in traditional settings.

 "There's a significant population in our area that needs that kind of program. They have learning challenges, but they still have the capacity and the will to achieve. They just need additional support."

 Supt. Stephen Fitzpatrick, Houlton
 

Our Curriculum is the Maine Learning Results.
 

The majority of students attending the Carleton Project are high school dropouts that are trying to rectify their situation. 

 A one-year plan after graduation is a graduation requirement

  • 95% of students who identified full time employment as a goal for the following graduation succeeded.
  • 65% of our graduates have gone on to post-secondary education.

 We embrace the Maine Learning Results as a good guide for alternative education at the secondary level.  We did not have to align our curriculum with them.  Our curriculum is the Maine Learning Results.
 
 

We operate year round, four days each week.  Many of our students hold jobs.  200 hours of workplace experience is a graduation requirement.

Students are often referred by the Department of Corrections, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the Department of Labor, so their tuition is subsidized by one of these state agencies. Some have tuition paid by their local school system if it has recommended their placement at Carleton.

Other times, parents like Cheryl Duperry pick up the tab. Her son had been earning poor grades at Ashland High School because he was bored, she said. He thrived at Carleton and went on to the New England School of Communications in Bangor.

 In their last year, students can take an English course free of charge at Northern Maine Community College in Presque Isle.

 "Most come in thinking they'll never go to college, but when they pass the course, they say to themselves, 'Wow, I didn't know I could do that’. It's a great confidence builder."
                                                                         Alan Morris, Director

 
 

To received a free copy of the US Department of Education’s June 2004 publication, "Successful Charter Schools," which highlights 8 diverse charter schools around the country, send a request to macs@mainecharterschools.org.

For more information, see the US Department of Education's website on charter schools: http://www.uscharterschools.org/

 
 

To contact MACS: macs@mainecharterschools.org
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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