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The meeting will be held in the New Futures Lab at the Heyward Career & Technology Center located at 3560 Lynhaven Drive in Columbia. Lunch will not be provided. Participants may bring their own lunch or use the one-hour break to drive to a nearby restaurant.

The U.S. Department of Education has awarded South Carolina a three-year Public Charter Schools grant. One purpose of these funds is to expand the number of high-quality charter schools available to students by providing financial assistance for groups in planning, program design and initial implementation of successful programs.

The Jan. 15 workshop will cover topics related to the charter school application process and provide planning groups with information necessary to prepare a quality proposal. The workshop will be held from 8:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Registration will begin at 8:15 a.m.

Any person or group, including an existing public school that forms a nonprofit corporation, may apply to operate a charter school. An existing public school may be converted into a charter school if two-thirds of the faculty and instructional staff and two-thirds of parents of enrolled students agree to the filing of a charter school application.

The South Carolina Charter Schools Act defines a charter school as public, nonreligious, non-home-based, nonprofit and nondiscriminatory. A charter school operates within a public school district and is open to all eligible students within that district. It is accountable to the local school board, which grants its charter, or to the new Statewide Charter School District.

Charter schools provide an opportunity for the organization and operation of innovative and substantially deregulated public schools. The schools are an additional avenue for parents, teachers and community members to educate students within the public school system.  

Charter schools are intended to improve student learning, increase learning opportunities for students, encourage the use of a variety of productive teaching methods, establish new forms of accountability for schools and create new professional opportunities for teachers, including the opportunity to be responsible for the learning program at the school.

Registration for the charter school workshop must be received by Monday, Jan. 12. Registration is limited to 30 participants, so groups are asked to limit their attendance to no more than two representatives per applicant group.

For information, contact Rebecca Cupstid (rcupstid@ed.sc.gov / 803-734-8266).