Unique Southern NH Charter School Opening Fall 2015

Without much fanfare the NH State Board of Education approved opening a new MicroSociety Academy Charter School (MACS) for Southern New Hampshire this past August. Since then, a volunteer Start-Up 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.

The chair of the group, parent Marc Sylvester of Nashua, said, “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. 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 reports that some parents have already started to pre-enroll their children the school’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/nhmicroschool. The school’s formal enrollment period will begin after January 1.

Deciding upon a suitable school location is one of the challenges facing the MACS Start-Up 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. We hope to have an official location announcement within a few weeks after we receive and deliberate over the prospective landlords’/developers’ competing proposals and review zoning and code regulations,” stated Sylvester.

Another member of the MACS Start-Up Team is Dave Cronin, a resident of Pelham, retired Lowell Public School educator, and staff member at the McDonough City Magnet School. Cronin, along with two other former colleagues, retired principal Tom Malone and teacher Theresa Roach, both of Lowell, were asked by Sylvester and other City Magnet alum Greater-Nashua parents, to help them develop a Charter School in New Hampshire based upon their past MicroSociety learning experiences at the unique K-8 Lowell school.

Cronin expressed, “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 NH State Board of Education this past summer”.

Cronin added, “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 NH 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.”

Cronin explained, “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/magazine that can be viewed on student tablets, operating three branches of their own government, etc.”

Another former City Magnet student and Start-Up team member, Cheryl McNamara Bean, also of Nashua, stated, “Besides making a decision about locating our school, the Start-Up team is now waiting upon the NH Department of Education to approve our plan and allocate Federal Charter School Start Up 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 http://www.gofundme.com/f8imu4, video links, and other updates are available on the school’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/nhmicroschool. Any questions about the school can be sent via email: nhmicroschool@gmail.com or calling 603-566-8302. The school’s website www.macsnh.org, is presently in the development stage, but should be up soon.