NASHUA – Without much fanfare, the state Board of Education approved opening a MicroSociety Academy Charter School for southern New Hampshire in August.

Since then, a volunteer team consisting of parents, educators and Greater Nashua community members has been working to prepare for the K-8 school’s expected opening in September 2015.

“We plan to open MACS with a cohort of 120 K-5 students and then add grades 6-8 over the succeeding three years to reach a capacity of 180 students,” said the chairman of the group, parent Marc Sylvester, of Nashua. “Parents like our school’s MicroSociety theme, and that we are planning on having a full-day kindergarten program and a low 20-to-1 student-teacher ratio.”

Sylvester said some parents have already started to pre-enroll their children on the school’s page at facebook.com/nhmicroschool. The school’s formal enrollment period will begin after Jan. 1.

Deciding on a suitable location is one of the challenges facing the startup team.

“Over the past several weeks, our team has been busy working with a Nashua commercial real-estate agent visiting and narrowing the school’s potential location from a field of seven down to two possible Greater Nashua sites,” Sylvester said. “We hope to have an official location announcement within a few weeks after we receive and deliberate over the prospective landlords’ or developers’ competing proposals, and review zoning and code regulations.”

Another member of the startup team is Dave Cronin, of Pelham, a retired public school educator in Lowell, Mass., and a staff member at McDonough City Magnet School.

Cronin, along with two former colleagues, retired Principal Tom Malone and teacher Theresa Roach, both of Lowell, were asked by Sylvester and other City Magnet alumni parents to help them develop a charter school in New Hampshire based on their past MicroSociety learning experiences at the K-8 Lowell school.

“The opening of our MicroSociety Academy will be the culmination of three years of hard work, planning, meeting and writing the MACS application that was finally approved after two lengthy hearings by the New Hampshire State Board of Education this past summer,” Cronin said.

“Our team was extremely gratified to see that with the board’s 5-2 vote and the endorsement of Commissioner of Education Dr. Virginia Barry, they agreed southern New Hampshire families should have an innovative, tuition-free, K-8 public charter school option that focuses upon having students taught through research-based, technology-infused, innovative learning strategies applied daily as students create and operate the agencies and ventures of their own ‘microsociety’ in our school.

“Students in our MicroSociety Charter School will be given daily opportunities to take the lessons they are learning in the classroom and concretely apply and integrate their skills by working in a variety of jobs, earning a salary in school currency, shopping in a marketplace, conducting various banking and business transactions, publishing an online newspaper or magazine that can be viewed on student tablets, operating three branches of their own government, et cetera.”

“Besides making a decision about locating our school,” said Cheryl McNamara Bean, of Nashua, another former City Magnet student and startup team member, “the startup team is now waiting upon the New Hampshire Department of Education to approve our plan and allocate federal charter school startup funds.

“Beyond that, the team wants to recruit interested board of trustee candidates from Greater Nashua who are willing to help govern the school, recruit New Hampshire families interested in enrolling their children, and, of course, hire a school director and teaching staff before our fall 2015 opening.”

More information about MACS pre-enrollment of students, GoFundMe campaign at www.gofundme.com/f8imu4, video links and other updates are available on the school’s Facebook page, at nhmicroschool@gmail.com and at 566-8302.

The school’s website, www.macsnh.org, is in the development stage.