Sentinel
& Enterprise
MPS to become independent
school
By Kyle Alspach
Tuesday, January
24, 2006 - FITCHBURG -- The Museum Partnership School will
open as an independent school with its own principal this September,
though its location has yet to be determined. A $600,000 grant from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been acquired to help pay
for the transition, officials said Monday.
"This is huge.
MPS needs some good news," said Lisa Moison, School Committee member.
"I think it speaks to the quality of the program, that people from
the outside are noticing it."
The grade 5-8 school
has been open since 1995, but had to leave its building on Academy Street
in October because of a lack of money for roof and window repairs.
Students are now
housed on the fourth floor of Academy Middle School.
The Museum Partnership
School will get its own principal this fall and become the 11th independent
school in the Fitchburg district, Superintendent Andre Ravenelle said
Monday.
The school will
evaluate students based on a writing and art portfolio, not just on
test scores, Ravenelle said.
Students may also
have a part in grading each other's work, he said.
The $600,000 grant,
secured by the Center for Collaborative Education in Roxbury, will help
the district plan for the change, Ravenelle said.
The money will be
rolled out over five years, and also go toward planning the addition
of high-school grades to the Museum Partnership School, he said.
"One goal of
this grant is to open a high school in September 2007," Ravenelle
said.
The school will
first add the ninth grade and get another grade each year, Ravenelle
said.
Each grade will
have a maximum of 100 students, he said.
The Museum Partnership
School is a collaboration between the city's public-school district
and the Fitchburg Art Museum, and emphasizes art in teaching traditional
subjects. It now shares a principal with B.F. Brown Middle School.
The school is also
poised to become the first school in the country to follow the Boston
pilot schools model.
The model gives
school officials more control over some matters, such as the curriculum,
and advocates say it has a positive impact on student learning (see
sidebar).
Ravenelle said that
starting in September, the Museum Partnership School will get city money
based the size of its student body, just like any other school in the
district.
Ravenelle expected
the middle-school grades, which have 167 students now, could grow to
200 students in the future once the school gains becomes independent.
He said the city
will be able to afford to pay a principal and a part-time curriculum
administrator using additional school choice money.
School choice allows
students to attend a school outside their district.
"Hopefully
there will be more money coming in," Ravenelle said.
The school also
doesn't yet have a permanent home. Its former building on Academy Street
needed at least $860,000 of repairs and was later boarded up.
Students are now
taking classes on the fourth floor of Academy Middle School, but Ravenelle
has pledged that this will only continue until the end of the year.
A committee is now
seeking a permanent home for the school.
Moison, a committee
member, said the school's future building will have to be located near
the Fitchburg Art Museum on Academy Street, where students have some
classes.
The Fitchburg district
has two schools on the street, B.F. Brown Middle School and Academy
Middle School.
"We'll soon
be starting to do site visits," Moison said. "We're going
to go out and physically walk through our building spaces, and see how
we can utilize the space we have."
The announcement
of the grant was scheduled to occur at Monday's School Committee meeting.
The meeting was
canceled due to the snowstorm.
(c) 2006 Sentinel
& Enterprise. All rights reserved.
