The Natomas School of Science, a new charter school, is scheduled to open in the Natomas Unified School District this fall.
The school’s mission will to work with the school district to reach out to students in Natomas, Sacramento County and neighboring counties who are underrepresented in the scientific professions. The plan is to move these students successfully along the pipeline from middle school to high school to college and into professions and positions of leadership.
The charter school’s goals are to:
- engage students of diverse backgrounds in their education;
- encourage their persistence and success in a rigorous academic curriculum and co-curricular program (using a science-themed approach in the initial year and other subject-themed approaches in successive years)
- provide students with rigorous and interactive learning activities; and
- foster a culture of learning that leads to a successful high school experience, matriculation to college, graduate or professional education, and adulthood as an engaged citizen and leader.
The Natomas School of Science will be for students in grades 6 thru 8. The initial target group of students will be approximately 125 6th graders and a small class of 7th and 8th grade students, with the intention of adding a new class of 6th graders each year until all three years of middle school are covered.
The charter school will open with a science-themed curriculum, but other profession-oriented themes will be explored for addition to the curriculum as the school evolves.
It isn’t that I don’t like Charter schools, just that I don’t like so many of them in Natomas. How do they have a budget set aside for this when the district is predicting a $5million loss when the govenor cuts the school budget? The schools we all ready have (and there are a bunch of em) don’t have enough resources to maintain the facilities we have. Case in point. My kids and I spent some time this weekend picking up the garbage out in front of Heron School…two large bags full, because the custodian doesn’t have time to do it and we got tired of looking at the noodle cup sitting in the rosemary plant for over three weeks!
I am opposed to yet another charter school. Wake up everyone. They create inequity for Natomas kids. And the creators are definitely profiting from these kinds of rackets, all at the expense of the taxpayers. The blame gets placed on schools (teachers and students) instead of where it should be: administrators and profiteering CEOs. Stop this fad.