District 300 reviews charter school extension

Officials in Community Unit District 300 are reviewing a five-year extension of the district's charter school, as well as the addition of online classes for kindergarten through high school students.

Larry Fuhrer, executive director of the Northern Kane Educational Corp. presented the proposal to the school board Monday night to extend an agreement with the Cambridge Lakes Charter school through 2015. The Pingree Grove school opened in 2007 to meet the needs of an exploding population in the district and quickly became popular, Fuhrer said.

"The charter has become a school of choice," Fuhrer said.

Although enrollment dipped slightly in 2009, numbers are up 21 percent in the current school year, Fuhrer said.

The new charter proposes the inclusion of blended virtual learning to provide a new option for meeting personal learning needs. The online option, which will be called the Illinois Online Charter School, will allow advanced students to move forward more quickly, while the academically challenged students can receive one-on-one support from a certified online teacher to catch up.

District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt said the virtual learning aspect of the charter is a growing issue and likened it to the district's wind farm project.

"It is creative and out of the box," Arndt said. "If we don't try new ideas, change never comes about."

School Board President Joe Stevens said the district's attorney is reviewing the charter.

"We want the attorney to review the charter to make sure everything looks OK to us," Stevens said. "We are not sure of what the fiscal impact will be in District 300. When you move too fast, you miss things. We are not about to do that."