AUGUSTA — The Blue Hill Harbor School in Hancock County educates 14 students who complete high school by following a curriculum based on their personal interests.

At The Community School in Camden, eight students – some of whom previously dropped out of school – live on campus and follow individualized curriculums that allow them to intern at businesses. The school’s 40 other students are teenage mothers who earn diplomas by completing a home-based high school program.

And in Cornville, members of a committee that will recommend uses for the town’s recently closed school see a chance to revive their community school.

What do they have in common?

They’re all prospective charter schools, and their representatives spent much of Monday at the State House telling lawmakers and others about their plans – which depend on passage of a bill allowing the independent public schools.

Maine is one of 10 states that don’t allow charter schools. But charter school supporters are more optimistic than ever that that will change.

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The Maine Association for Charter Schools expects this Republican-led Legislature to be more open to charter schools than Democratic-led Legislatures that have rejected such proposals.

Two Republican senators, Garrett Mason of Lisbon Falls and Roger Katz of Augusta, have proposed bills to allow charter schools, and Gov. Paul LePage’s administration will support those efforts, said Stephen Bowen, the governor’s senior policy adviser on education.

The Community School puts together a budget from donations and tuition payments from eight districts that send students. A charter school law would give the school a steadier stream of funding, said Joseph Hufnagel, who directs the school’s residential program.

Mike Muir said a charter school law would allow his virtual high school program, which works with a dozen Auburn students, to work with more districts.

And the law would let the school in Cornville reopen, after it was closed last year by School Administrative District 54.

“We’ve got the building there, and a lot of parents and students are ready to go back there,” said Justin Belanger, a member of the committee recommending uses for the building.

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The charter school law being pushed by the Maine Association for Charter Schools would set up a system of schools that would receive public funding for each student, along with federal seed money.

The schools would have more flexibility than traditional public schools to, for example, host classes year-round and dismiss teachers if they’re not meeting performance targets.

In addition, the schools would have to meet specifically negotiated targets for students’ performance or risk being shut down by their authorizers – local school boards, public or private colleges with education programs or a statewide charter school commission.

Since they would draw funding from home school districts for each student they enroll, charter schools would challenge school districts in their first few years, said John D’Anieri, who’s proposing a set of schools where students would work on projects with businesses and nonprofit organizations.

“The question that we should be asking is, what is the best possible use of the resources available for public education?” he said. “Charter legislation creates a structure to allocate spending in ways that encourage innovation and accountability at a local level.”

But there are a number of ways educators can currently innovate that don’t involve introducing a new system of schools that will draw from a limited resource base, said Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, the assistant Senate minority leader.

“It’s surprising to me that we’re having this discussion when I think most people in the education community would probably agree that we have more infrastructure and other costs than we can even afford now,” he said.


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