Madison School Board to reconsider ag charter school: Badger Rock

Matthew DeFour:

As the Madison School Board prepares to take a second shot Monday at approving an agriculture-themed charter school on Madison's South Side, board members remain divided on what was once thought to be a slam-dunk proposal.

"I'm sold on the concept; I'm not sold on the budget," board member Lucy Mathiak said Friday. "I don't see anyone being jolly about spending $700,000 a year for 50 kids."

Badger Rock Middle School, expected to open next fall with 50 sixth-graders mostly from the Sennett Middle School attendance area, has a projected budget shortfall of $43,000 for 2011-12, with a projected budget of $668,600. The gap is projected to grow to $134,000 in the charter school's third year, when it has 150 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders and is expected to cost $1.37 million to run.

Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad 1.3MB PDF::

On February 16,2010, MMSD received BRMS's Planning

Grant and Executive Summary of its proposed charter school. On August 16, 2010, the DPI approved the Planning Grant and provided BRMS with an award of $200,000.
(Please see communication from DPI attached as Appendix A).

The proposed charter school will be located on 4 acres of property on the grounds of the
Badger Resilience Center in South Madison. The designated site is adjacent to a 7 acre
Madison park that will also be used to foster BRMS' philosophy of cultural and
environmental sustainability. The site also currently has a working farm, a community
center, a cafe and a gardening and sustainability operation run by Growing Power.
In addition to the previously referenced planning grant, funding for BRMS, including a
school endowment, is being spearheaded by the Center for Resilient Cities. BRMS
reports that "close to a million dollars" has been committed to the project and these, and
future, funds are being provided by private contributors.

BRMS notes that the research-based instructional strategies upon which their pedagogy
will be established are Environmental-Based Education (EBE) and Place -Based
Education (PBE). As noted in BRMS Executive Summary, both EBE and PBE have
been subject to numerous research efforts and have demonstrated positive results for
involved students, and in particular, students at the middle school level. EBE in
particular is also consistent with PI 8.01 which mandates that "environmental education
objectives and activities shall be integrated into the kindergarten through grade 12
sequential curriculum plans." BRMS also proposes a "year-round" school which would
not increase the number of instructional days, but would lessen the traditional threemonth
summer break.

BRMS has established numerous partnerships with community agencies. These
agencies are detailed in the Executive Summary and Detailed Proposal (See
Appendices B and D)

Much more on the proposed Badger Rock Middle School Charter initiative here.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 12, 2010 4:03 AM
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