With 8 weeks until school starts, Sacramento charter starts from scratch
Published: Monday, Jul. 14, 2014 - 5:54 pm
Last Modified: Monday, Jul. 14, 2014 - 6:56 pm
The paint is fresh. The rooms are clean. All that’s needed at fledgling New Joseph Bonnheim Community Charter School are the students.
It has been less than a month since Sacramento City Unified School District trustees narrowly approved parents’ bid to reopen the elementary campus in south Sacramento and run it as a charter school. In a June presentation, proponents expected to enroll 323 students by the Sept. 8 start of class.
Now, with less than eight weeks left, the pressure is on. The district will deliver furniture and equipment in the coming weeks, said Dennis Mah, who describes himself as an architect of the New Bonnheim effort after having founded the Yav Pem Suab Academy, another charter school on South Land Park Drive.
Bonnheim is one of seven campuses the district closed in mid-2013 because of falling enrollment, and many students were shifted to Peter Burnett or Earl Warren elementary schools.
Last month, trustees Jay Hansen, Christina Pritchett, Diana Rodriguez and Gustavo Arroyo, the last of whom represents the neighborhood, provided the bare four-vote majority to go forward. They did so despite warnings from district staff that the plan, as proposed, did not fully explain its programs and was unlikely to succeed.
Representatives of the district and the Sacramento City Teachers Association are working out a process for posting jobs and hiring teachers, Mah said. Then teachers must coordinate their lesson plans for students in kindergarten through sixth grade. But hiring is still weeks away, since the number of teachers will depend on how many students are enrolled.
As of Thursday afternoon, the third day of the registration drive, about 100 students had signed up.
That came after volunteers began walking the neighborhood, knocking on doors and contacting parents. Among them were Arthur Aleman, one of three leaders of the charter drive. His granddaughter, Destiny Silva, is signed up to start the fifth grade at Bonnheim.
Manuel Duenas and his sons Cristiano, 4, and Adriano, 2, were in front of their home when Aleman showed up, fliers in hand. Duenas said later he had learned about Bonnheim three weeks ago from family friends. On Thursday, he was enthusiastic.
Cristiano, who will be 5 in August, “was supposed to be enrolled at Earl Warren (Elementary School),” Duenas said. That changed after he researched plans for New Bonnheim.
“The type of program that they’re running, it’s more hands-on. It’s more dedicated to theWith 8 weeks until school starts, Sacramento charter starts from scratch - Education - The Sacramento Bee: