Charter school continues to see growth

With a blue rag in his left hand, Nathan Streeter was doing his part to get his school ready for its first day next week.

“I've been cleaning lockers,” said Streeter, who is starting his senior year at the Academy for Science and Design in Merrimack.

The area's lone charter school is entering its third year in existence this year, and Wednesday was a workday, of sorts, for students, parents and school staff. They spent the afternoon getting all of the new furniture into the building and making sure everything is ready the start of the year next week.

Streeter, who lives in Bedford, was one of the 35 students in the school's inaugural class in 2007. Now 17, Streeter said the school has been everything he hoped it would be and more.

He has been able to take advanced engineering and science classes, including some college classes at Daniel Webster College.

And the fact that students and parents were willing to spend one of the final days of summer vacation to help clean and move furniture is a testament to how much they care about their school, he said.

“It really is the ASD family,” he said.

There was plenty of work to be done at the school, tucked away in an office building along Daniel Webster Highway.

In one corner of a room, a ping-pong table had a globe, a pillow and several notebooks strewn about its top. Little by little, the crew worked together to get everything where it needed to be.

Fortunately, there are a few more people around this year to lend a hand. This year, it will open its doors with an enrollment of 115 students, including two seniors who will mark the school's first, albeit small, graduating class.

And as the student body grows, so has the space for learning.

This year, the school has expanded to the entire second floor the office building. The school will have about 24,000 square feet of space to use, said director Chris Franklin.

“We're more than triple the size of where we were,” said Franklin.

More space will mean teachers will have their own classrooms. There also will be a larger cafeteria. The old cafeteria is being reconfigured into an earth science laboratory, one of two new laboratories being added this year.

“We've needed more classroom space and space for students,” Franklin said.

While the size of the school - students and space - continues to grow, one thing that has remained constant since the first day has been a strong sense of community.

Nancy Freeman, a 10th grader, was part of that inaugural class three years ago. Not all charter schools succeed, and she said everyone involved knew they were taking a chance.

“We were all a little scared that first year,” she said.

Freeman had been a student at Elm Street Middle School in Nashua. She said that in addition to a challenging academic program more suited to her interests, she also likes that she can go to school and not worry about bullying or fights breaking out.

Franklin, whose daughter also attends the school, had been running the school on a volunteer basis, but will hand over the reigns this year to its new full-time paid director, Andrew Maloney

Maloney brings 35 years of experience working in the traditional public school setting, as well experience teaching in private schools and colleges.

He praises the work done in traditional public schools, but said they're “overloaded and over demanded.”

He came to his new job because he liked the idea of being able to create truly individualized programs for students.

“I came here because I was intrigued by the potential,” Maloney said.

The Academy for Science and Design, which serves students in grades 7 through 12, is one of 11 charter schools in the state.

That doesn't include the three that opened but were later forced to shut down to due to lack of funding.

Charter schools are publicly funded but do not operate under the same type of local control as traditional public schools.

The state is providing charter schools with $5,500 per student this year, which Franklin said is an improvement over previous years but still not enough to pay for all of the expenses.

“It's still a lot less than what you can run a school on,” he said.

Franklin said the school depends on donations from corporations and seeks out grants to help balance the budget. The school is looking at a deficit this year, so there is a still need to find those additional resources, he said.

Franklin said one of the biggest misconceptions that new parents bring about charter schools is the assumption they'll have to pay tuition. Franklin is quick to inform them that there is no cost.

Many parents also come in with the misconception that there is some kind of entrance exam required. Franklin said the school takes any students who want to enroll, as long as it doesn't exceed the space allotted.

If too many students enroll, the school has to hold a lottery, he said. The school draws primarily from the Nashua and Manchester area, but the student body represents about 25 different New Hampshire cities and towns.

Franklin added that although the focus is on science, math, engineering and design, students have to take core courses in subjects such as English and history.

Students also are required to a stewardship project, which could range from volunteering in a hospital to teaching a course at the school.

“Things like that keep students well-rounded,” he said.

The Learning Curve appears Thursdays in The Telegraph. Michael Brindley can be reached at 594-6426 or mbrindley@nashuatelegraph.com.