UNIVERSITY TO DECIDE ON CHARTER SCHOOL

Southeast Missouri State University's Board of Regents could approve an application for a proposed charter middle school in St. Louis when it meets in special session Wednesday.

Board members will meet via a telephone conference call administered through the university president's office.

Southeast President Dr. Ken Dobbins also will attend the meeting by phone from St. Joseph where he will be attending a meeting of the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education.

As of Thursday, university officials still hadn't set a meeting time.

Dobbins said he and the regents plan to discuss the issue in closed session first before going into open session. Dobbins said the board legally can discuss the application behind closed doors because it involves a contract between the university and the middle school.

Under state law the university must approve or reject the charter application within 60 days after filing. The application from Lift for Life Gym was submitted to the university on Feb. 14. As a result, the regents must decide by next Friday to comply with the law.

The not-for-profit Lift for Life Gym filed the application to establish a middle school next fall for 60 students. The school would be housed in the same building at 1415 Cass Ave. as the gym.

Lift for Life hopes to relocate the school to another building in the neighborhood for the 2001-2002 school year.

Organizers want to begin with a sixth-grade-only school and expand it to seventh and eighth grades over the following two years with a total enrollment of about 180 students. The proposed Lift for Life Academy would operate on an 11-month school year.

State law allows charter schools to operate only in the St. Louis and Kansas city school districts. They must be sponsored by the school districts or universities.

Dobbins said Thursday that he plans to review a report from a seven-member team that evaluated the application. The team was headed by Dr. B.C. DeSpain of Southeast's College of Education and included two school superintendents and two former superintendents.

Carla Scissors-Cohen serves on the Lift for Life board of directors. She is married to Lift for Life founder and director Marshall Cohen.

As sponsor, the university would agree to supervise the school. "Their role by law is not to do day-to-day operations but to provide oversight," she said.

The supervision hasn't been spelled out in detail, Scissors-Cohen said.

As part of any agreement, Lift for Life would agree to operate the middle school as spelled out in its application.

Even if the regents approve the charter school application, it still must pass muster with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education before the school can open, she said. The middle school hopes to open its doors Sept. 5.

The Cohens said the evaluation process has been helpful. "Their whole review committee has really helped us make it just a really nice proposal," said Marshall Cohen.

Scissors-Cohen said the evaluation team's questions and advice prompted Lift for Life to revise its plans slightly. "It will help us do a better job of helping the students," she said.

Lift for Life leaders met with the evaluation team and Dobbins at Southeast on Feb. 18. Members of the evaluation team headed by DeSpain visited with Lift for Life officials in St. Louis on March 21.

Lift for Life officials met with several members of the evaluation team again last week at Southeast.

Scissors-Cohen said the proposed budget in the application was revised upwards to account for summer-school funding from the state.

Revenue for the middle school is projected at $510,324 for the first year, most of that coming in the form of state aid. Expenses are projected at $484,666 for the first year.

Plans call for hiring a principal who will teach, three full-time teachers and a full-time counselor. There also is money budgeted for several part-time teachers and a part-time custodian.

The school would operate in a converted warehouse the first year. The building also houses the Lift for Life Gym.

Areas in the building would be partitioned off for classrooms, Scissors-Cohen said. "It will not look like a traditional school and that's OK. We are not a traditional school," she said.

The charter school would have four classrooms the first year with no more than 15 students in each classroom.

Small classes are important to organizers of Lift for Life Academy. The school would serve at-risk students who are in danger of dropping out of the St. Louis public schools.

"We're going to make it fun and exciting so the kids can get fired up about education," she said. "We don't want it to look or feel like the other schools they have been in."