HADLEY — Leaders of a Chinese-language charter school want to build a new high school and more than double the size of the student body, but state Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester says: Not so fast.
Chester last year rejected the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School’s request to increase its maximum enrollment from 584 to 986 students, but school officials this week asked the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to reconsider. School officials argue that the Chinese language school fills an important niche in public education and needs to make room for students progressing to high school.
The school currently has 430 students from roughly 25 western Massachusetts communities, in grades K-11. When the school opened in the fall of 2007, it was initially authorized to serve kindergarten through eighth grade. But its vision was always to be a K-12 school, said Richard Alcorn, executive director.
“At the end of the day, we are developing high-proficiency Chinese speakers,” he said. “No schools were prepared to take the kids graduating from our eighth-grade program,” he added, noting the addition of grades 9 to 11 and a plan to expand into 12th grade next year. “It doesn’t make sense to just let them drop off the cliff after eighth grade.”
Chester declined in January 2015 to bring the school’s expansion request to the state education board for consideration. He said the school had failed to provide “compelling evidence” that state officials should approve the expansion before the school’s charter is considered for renewal after the 2016-17 academic year.
In a letter sent to Alcorn, Chester noted that the Chinese school was awarded a charter amendment in February 2013 to add Grades 9 to 12 and increase enrollment by 284.
“The Board’s decision permitted implementation of the school’s proposed growth plan up to its first year of operation as a K-12 school and the end of its current charter term, in 2016-2017,” the letter states.
Alcorn, however, wants to make plans now for a longer-term solution — one that would involve building a new high school at a different location than the school’s current site on Route 9.
“There is no way to further expand our existing facility,” Alcorn said, noting that the physical space of the building and parking lot is being used close to maximum.
If the school fails to secure permission to expand, Alcorn said it would create not only a space crunch but also financial hurdles for an institution whose ambitions are growing along with its enrollment. Without permission to increase enrollment, he said, school officials would hesitate to invest in the new building.