Madison Preparatory Academy will receive the first half of a $225,000 state planning grant after the Madison School Board determined Thursday that the revised proposal for the charter school addresses legal concerns about gender equality.
Madison Schools Superintendent Dan Nerad announced the decision following a closed School Board meeting.
Questions still remain about the cost of the proposal by the Urban League of Greater Madison, which calls for a school for 60 male and 60 female sixth-graders geared toward low-income minorities that would open next year.
“I understand the heartfelt needs for this program,” Nerad said, but “there are other needs we need to address.”
And the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, which originally raised questions about a proposal for an all-boys school, cautioned that single-gender classrooms may present legal problems.
A public hearing will be held on the proposal later this month, and the School Board’s final vote on the proposal will be held in November, Nerad said.
Urban League President Kaleem Caire thanked the board for allowing the proposal to go forward.
To address the gender equality issues, the Urban League changed its proposal from an all-boys school to one that will serve boys and girls in separate classrooms. The proposal calls for the district to contribute about $10.5 million more over five years than the previous proposal. The net cost, which accounts for savings a charter school creates for the district, was not available Thursday.
Board member Ed Hughes, who voted for the Madison Prep proposal in March with reservations about the cost, said his concerns are heightened because of the added cost.
“It’s a jaw-dropping number,” Hughes said about the $10.5 million increase. “I’m not willing to cut our existing program in order to provide money for this charter school.”
Richard Scott, a retired East High School teacher, joined a chorus of charter school supporters Thursday who asked the School Board to support the proposal. Scott said he witnessed how low expectations for minority students led to frustration, aggression and eventually incarceration.
“The issues that we’re hearing about and addressing now are the same issues when I came here in 1975,” Scott said. “It’s not about the dollars. It’s about making sense for our young people.”
ACLU Wisconsin submitted a letter Thursday that said adding classes for girls is a step in the right direction, but it still raises the potential problem of gender discrimination.
“It will still violate the law if the girls’ school fails to receive substantially equal resources, programming and services or if the educational programming is based on sex stereotypes,” executive director Chris Ahmuty wrote.
