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Hundreds of excited parents and students gathered early Saturday for a lottery to select students to attend a new charter public school to open in Tacoma this fall. SOAR Academy, the first elementary public charter school in Pierce County, will provide kindergarten through 8th grade for schoolchildren. The school received 234 applications for 124 available slots in kindergarten and first grade. Principal Kristina Bellamy-McClain drew at random from a drum to select student names. Disappointed families were placed on a waiting list, in case new spaces become available by the time the school opens.
Demand for places at the new school is high. Traditional public schools in the area often fail to provide children with a good education and parents are anxious to explore other options. Many low-income parents see access to a quality education as the best way out of poverty for their children.
Located in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood, SOAR Academy Charter School is designed to offer an academically rigorous program in which student progress is monitored closely. Administrators plan to provide small class sizes of 17 students in core subjects, and will guide students in accepting responsibility for their own learning efforts. The program will include an hour of visual or performance art instruction every day, and extra help will be available to students who need it.
SOAR Academy plans to accept new kindergarten and first grade students each year until it reaches its full capacity of 450 students. The school’s motto is “Excellence is the Standard.”
Principal Kristina Bellamy-McClain told parents, “We are excited and humbled at the strong, positive response in our school, as well as for Summit and Green Dot [two other charter schools to open in Tacoma this fall]. Tacoma and Pierce County families are leaping at the opportunity to choose learning environments that best suit their child’s needs.”
Parent Randall Rathke and his daughter Irene
Parent Danielle Davis
Two other Puget-Sound-area charter schools held lotteries on Saturday. Charter public schools Summit Sierra in Seattle and Summit Olympus in Tacoma were oversubscribed, as applications from parents far outstripped available slots. I will give the latest on these two schools in a later post.
Earlier this month, two new charter schools in Spokane held lotteries to select students: PRIDE Prep and Spokane International. My latest report on these schools is here.
This report is part of WPC’s Charter School Follow-up Project