MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia Academy completed a formal interview last week before the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board and participated in a public forum for its pending charter application. "We're happy to be two steps closer to our opening in the Fall of 2022. We'd like to thank the many families that came out to show support, ask questions, and engage in shaping the future of West Virginia public education," said John Treu, president of West Virginia Academy. The forum was conducted last Friday at the Erickson Alumni Center at West Virginia University and the interview was completed earlier in the week. Members of the community were encouraged to provide feedback last week either by attending the live event or by submitting feedback to Adam Kissel, who is the chair of the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board.
The governing board of the academy also presented their vision for the school, which will initially serve preschool through 9th grade and then add a grade each year through 12th grade. The academy will open either as a charter school or as a hope-scholarship funded non-profit school, but the charter school format provides the best opportunity to serve all interested students. The proposed site for the school is in the cheat lake area of Morgantown. The following video was shown at the beginning of the academy's presentation:
"There was a much stronger response and participation by parents and families this year, in large part because the format was designed by the WV Professional Charter Board to be inclusive of community members," Treu said. "This year's forum stood in stark contrast to the open forum conducted by the local school district in the prior year where parents were brushed aside so that school district employees and teacher's union leaders who oppose charter schools could make political points. I was really happy to see that the comments this year were almost exclusively by parents and families and, not surprisingly, the result was a much more positive, constructive, and informative event."
The next step in the charter approval process is for the Professional Charter School Board to provide the academy with written feedback on its application and then the academy can make revisions as directed by the board. The final decision on West Virginia Academy's application must be issued no later than November 17th. Because there appear to be fewer than ten charter school applicants statewide, the West Virginia Department of Education will not have any role in the approval process and an official charter contract can be executed as early as December or January.
West Virginia Academy is accepting pre-registrants now for the Fall of 2022. Families can pre-register here.
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