More on the federal grants

The official press release from the state association:

Federal Grants Totaling $2,000,000 to New Charter School Programs

The Missouri Charter Public School Association (MCPSA) would like to announce that four new charter public school groups in Kansas City and St. Louis have been awarded Charter Schools Program (CSP) grants by the US Department of Education. Hope Academy, KIPP St. Louis, St. Louis Language Immersion Schools and Confluence Academy of the Arts have received grants totaling over $2 million for the planning, program design and initial implementation of their schools. These grants will be administered over a three-year period. CSP grants are competitive grants awarded to state education agencies and charter school developers.

Hope Academy is a dropout recovery school in Kansas City that is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. The first of its kind in Missouri, Hope Academy will serve students ages 16-21 in grades 9-12. Hope Academy will be receiving $558,046 over three years.

KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) St. Louis will be a charter public school modeled after the KIPP Academies that are currently operating in 65 locations in the nation which features an extended school day and year. KIPP will open in July 2009 with approximately 85 fifth-graders, and will add a new fifth grade class each year until reaching maturation with approximately 320 students in the fifth through eighth grades. KIPP St. Louis will receive a total of $662,620.

St. Louis Language Immersion Schools (SLLIS) will open in the fall of 2009 and will focus on total language immersion and the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. The school will begin by serving kindergarten and first grade and grow its enrollment one grade per year, eventually serving grades K-5. SLLIS will open with both a French and Spanish track for students to follow. $781,200 will be administered to SLLIS in federal CSP grants.

Confluence Academy of the Arts (CAA), St. Louis, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009 and will serve grades 6-12. CAA will have a strong focus on arts education while meeting the core-learning needs of its students. CAA is the newest addition to Confluence’s multi-campus network in St. Louis. CAA will receive $472, 750 over the three-year period. ###

About MCPSA

The Missouri Charter Public School Association is a non-profit organization that supports Missouri’s public charter schools. Charter schools are schools that are free and open to the public, operating with an independent school board and are accountable to a sponsoring entity for specific results. Missouri currently has 28 public charter schools, operating on 35 campuses. Public charter schools in Missouri are located within the Kansas City and St. Louis public school districts.