NEW GLOUCESTER, Maine — A nonprofit that works with youth at risk of not making it through high school has applied to fill the last open charter school slot in the state.
New Gloucester-based Wayfinder Schools wants to start Wayfinder Academy, which would begin with about 100 high schoolers, primarily teen parents and other at-risk youth. The group already runs residential and home-based programs for about 80 teens who risked dropping or failing out of high school without intervention.
“Wayfinder Academy strives to be a leading educational model for keeping kids in school, encouraging lifelong learning and nurturing the skills to move them into adulthood,” the school’s application states.
Wayfinder filed its 700-page application last week with the Maine Charter School Commission, the board responsible for oversight of the state’s charter operations. Since the fall of 2012, the commission has allowed nine charters to open their doors, including a pair of online schools.
Under the state’s charter school law, a maximum of 10 schools are allowed to open in the first 10 years of the law. That leaves one slot remaining until that 10-year window expires in 2021.
Wayfinder Academy would operate a nine-month residential program on its 321-acre campus off Gloucester Hill Road, according to its application. It also would operate Passages, a home-based high school degree program for young parents that aims to ensure they earn their diploma while teaching them parenting skills. The school says it has been offering a similar service for 20 years.
In its application, the school acknowledges that teen pregnancy rates across the nation have dropped dramatically in recent years, but still, fewer than 40 percent of teen mothers complete high school and fewer than 2 percent earn a college degree by age 30, according to national statistics.
It proposes a 1:10 teacher-student ratio, with a maximum total enrollment of 250 students, after a few years of phased growth.
If the commission decides to allow Wayfinder to open after a thorough application review and planning process, the charter can launch in the fall of 2017. If the commission denies the school’s bid, the remaining charter school spot will remain empty until 2018, when other hopeful schools could apply to fill it.
Earlier this summer, two other groups filed letters of intent indicating they planned to submit applications to start charter schools, but only Wayfinder filed applications before last week’s deadline.
A message left Thursday for Wayfinder CEO Dorothy Foote was not immediately returned.
For more information on the state’s charter schools, visit www.maine.gov/csc.
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