ST. LOUIS GROUP ASKS UNIVERSITY FOR CHARTER

A St. Louis neighborhood group has applied to Southeast Missouri State University for a charter to operate an elementary and middle school. The proposal has the support of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Southeast Missouri State University received the application within the past few days. But school officials and charter school supporters have agreed to delay the official submission date until Aug. 1.

Under state law, the university has 60 days to review and act upon a charter school application. School officials said it would be difficult to get a review team together over the summer because of vacation schedules.

"We knew turning it in in mid-summer could pose a problem," said Dave Camden, assistant director of the Missouri Charter School Information Center in St. Louis.

Camden's office has assisted organizers of the proposed charter school.

The proposed school would limit attendance to children from four south-central St. Louis neighborhoods near the Missouri Botanical Garden.

It would emphasize math, science and the environment.

The application seeks a 10-year charter. Organizers hope to open the school in the fall of 2001.

The Garden School initially would enroll about 150 children in kindergarten through the third grade and in sixth grade. Other grades would be added over the following two years until the school offered classes extending from kindergarten through eighth grade.

Camden said the school's proponents want to keep enrollment to under 300 with a low student-teacher ratio.

A location has not been found, but proponents want to locate the school in the area it would serve.

"The idea is to make this a neighborhood school," said Camden.

The Missouri Botanical Garden has agreed to work with the proposed charter school, he said.

Camden said project proponents turned to Southeast because school officials have been receptive to the charter school idea. Southeast's Board of Regents has chartered one school so far, Lift for Life Academy, which plans to open in St. Louis this fall.

The Garden School is the second application to be submitted to Southeast.

Charter schools are state-funded schools that operate independently of local school boards and superintendents. Under Missouri law, universities that charter schools must provide oversight.

State law only allows charter schools to be established in St. Louis and Kansas City.

Don Dickerson, president of Southeast's Board of Regents, said he believes the university could supervise "maybe two" charter schools.

State Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, an advocate of charter schools, welcomed the Garden School application.

Kinder said it is "a natural fit" for the university, which also would gain from working with the "world renowned" Missouri Botanical Garden.

Kinder said the charter school movement in Missouri continues to grow. The first four charter schools in St. Louis are scheduled to open this fall, with a combined enrollment of more than 1,200 children.

"These charter schools are reinventing public education in the inner cities," he said.