Janique Curry, community engagement manager, NY Charter Schools Association says now is the time to enroll and look at charter school education because the open enrollment period will soon close. You can look at all the participating schools by visiting www.enrollbuffalocharters.org [enrollbuffalocharters.org]. Applications need to be in by midnight on April 10th to be eligible for the charter school lottery, which is going to take place on April 12th. While schools will accept all students as long as there are seats in a particular grade, Janique Curry says, “if there are not enough seats in the school you have chosen for your child, they will then have a lottery to fairly offer seats." All of the schools have agreed to have a lottery on that same day so all families that applied will get notification shortly after 5 pm EST that day. If you have any questions you can go right on the website, enrollbuffalocharters.org [enrollbuffalocharters.org] or email info@enrollbuffalocharters.org. You can also call her at 716-245-5554 and they will get you the answers you need. Families may continue to apply for seats to charter schools after April 10th, but will only be accepted if seats remain available, otherwise they will be placed on a waitlist.
AM Buffalo has been visiting several charter schools over the past few months to showcase what they have to offer. Today we are visiting schools that are members of the New York Charter Schools Association."
Danny Brink-Washington, is the executive director at the Buffalo Commons Charter School and says Buffalo Commons is a really special place to go to school and says he thinks there are three things that make Buffalo Commons a wonderful choice for a lot of families.
First is a commitment to diversity and belonging. They serve an intentionally diverse community, that means kids come from all over the city with different backgrounds and bring with them all sorts of wonderful traditions and values and they celebrate that at Buffalo Commons.
Second, he says, is we encourage kids to find a sense of purpose while they are with us. Danny Brink-Washington says that means figuring out the answers to questions like, what am I good at, what do I love, what does the world need because we believe if kids have answers to those questions, they are on their way to a successful and fulfilling life.
Third, is the academic program. He tells us it is a project-based program to make sure kids are working with relevant things that matter to them, but they are mastering the core skills, but they are not actually using them in ways that are important.
Westminster Community Charter School is a K-8th grade charter school. Corey Wilson, assistant principal, says what sets it apart is their amazing staff, our students, and the support we get from the community. She says they have an eight to one ratio, so the class sizes are very small with lots of personalized attention for students and lots of supports built in. Each grade level has a special ed teacher dedicated to one classroom, they have two full-time ENL teachers at the school along with all the extracurricular that you would expect at any school as well as music and art enrichment throughout the day. Westminster offers chorus and band to their students and are getting ready for their Spring musical in May.
Linda Marszalek, head of school, REACH Academy Charter School says their school is an amazing place and when they started the idea to open a school, we decided what would be the ultimate classroom, what would it look like. She goes on to say we need more opportunities for rich language opportunities and literacy. They decided that they would take every classroom and they would turn it into what looks like a children’s museum exhibit. There are different themes in every classroom. In kindergarten and first grade the kids rotate around spending five weeks in each room, and they go through a total of eight rooms and they repeat that in their first grade room. Linda says what they really do with their themes and again it’s all about building on background knowledge and vocabulary so the more background knowledge you have, the easier learning becomes exponentially.
