Tower-Soudan Charter School

There's real progress to report on the effort to establish a new grades 7-12 charter school in Tower-Soudan. The state of Minnesota has finally cleared the way for approval of new charter schools in Minnesota and the development team for the Vermilion Country School (VCS) will be submitting a letter of intent to apply for authorization to Novation Education Opportunities (NEO), one of the first six entities officially approved by the state Department of Education to authorize new charters.

The VCS development team will have its full application into NEO within 60 days, which, if approved, should give us sufficient time to submit a federal planning grant by the August deadline. That would presumably allow the VCS to open for students in the fall of 2011.

We have an excellent development team, including former school superintendent Ray Toutloff, Jodi Summit, Becky Gawboy, Darlene Pecha, Muriel Scott, Chris Schuster, Troy Swanson, and myself.

What do we have in mind? Here's a brief description:

Our vision statement:

To provide students with the skills and confidence needed to lead a positive and productive life for themselves, their families, their communities, and their world.

Our mission: To create a small, safe, nurturing, and non-sectarian learning environment where students take an active role in their own education and in the betterment of their community.

Our objective is the creation of a new secondary charter school that emphasizes project-based teaching methods and utilization of a wide range of community-based assets, including individuals with special expertise, the surrounding natural environment, as well as historical and cultural resources specific to our area. The Vermilion Country School (VCS) will also entail a significant community service component, which we see as an important part of overall student learning.

We intend to provide our students with a high quality educational experience, one that focuses more on depth of study than breadth. We believe that by tapping into the individual interests of our students through a project-based approach to learning, we can more effectively instill a true understanding and appreciation for the lifelong value of learning.

We plan to host several community meetings in the near future to talk in more detail about our plans. But for now, parents and students in the Tower-Soudan area should be aware that we have an effective team in place that is working to ensure that our community will not only continue to offer grades 7-12 educational opportunity, but that those opportunities will be enhanced through the creation of a community-based and community-focused charter school.

We should know quite soon what the prospects are for approval of our proposal. But we believe our team has the qualifications to make a strong application and to actually implement our vision. It's exciting for us, and we hope all parents and students out there will want to learn more about the opportunities available at the Vermilion Country School. You can find out more on our web page at www.cityoftower.com/charterschool.html, or call me at 218-753-2950 with questions.

Thanks for your interest!