Updates on the expansion

Well, a lot has happened since our last post and there's a lot of work still to be done!

Firstly we'd like to thank everyone who wrote, called, e-mailed or faxed their Common Council member and the Mayor's office in support for our bid for School 36. The Common Council voted unanimously to approve our contract. After more than a year of working on acquiring the building, that was a huge step forward for EVCS. But there's still more to be done.

Now we've scheduled an environmental consultant to come and perform Phase II testing so we can be fully apprised of any hazards before the building is closed on. We also have an amendment to add another Kindergarten class this fall at 124 Elmwood in anticipation of our expansion that the building purchase makes possible. Since it looks like we've only got 10 available slots after our siblings are admitted, it will be a great day if we can bring another 25 students into our school! That will be voted on by the Board of Regents in mid-May and we'll certainly let everyone know as soon as we hear anything. Our lottery will be held on April 1st at the school, but if our 2nd K is approved, we will draw those names from our waiting list after the vote by the Regents.

It's also a busy time while we're in the midst of our renewal. We are integrating middle school programs and schedules into our new charter. We hope to have everything in place for a 7th grade in our 2011-2012 school year with an 8th grade to follow the year after. This is a crucial time in our school's existence and we want all of our families and members of our community to help us to retain our close-knit culture while we're growing slowly and organically, from the ground up.

Thanks again to everyone and we'll post something new when we've got more news to report.

Best wishes!

EVCS wants to grow

Elmwood Village CS is a public charter school educating 175 children in grades K-6 in the city of Buffalo.  We've worked hard to make our school safe and friendly, high-performing, a good partner and member of the community and from what we hear from our families and our neighbors, we've succeeded spectacularly.  Our test scores also help us to know that our programs are working with a diverse population of kids.    Our families want us to expand through 8th grade, as middle school options are limited in Buffalo and it is a difficult year to transition these students.  There aren't many openings in 7th grades throughout the city and there aren't many good options for our graduating 6th graders.  

Since 7th through 12th grades are more expensive to run than K-6th (more subject specialization and therefore more specialized teacher certifications) the idea of adding a second classroom at each grade level was explored.  Many of the founders had wanted this from the beginning for academic reasons (grade-level collaboration, additional classroom arrangement options) but the founders eventually agreed that the school should build its programs on a small scale to ensure their success.

Now that the school has established its core programs and has had proven successes (we're one of the top public schools in Buffalo, and one that you don't have to test into) we want to broaden the population we serve and offer an excellent free public education to more children in Buffalo.  We can also broaden our fiscal foundation.  We want to insulate ourselves from the ups and downs of the economic and political landscapes. 

We were approached by parents and neighbors about the possibility of acquiring and moving into School 36 on Days Park.  It had been saved from closing for two years due to the efforts of members of the neighborhood.  The school district finally decided to follow through with the plan to merge the bi-lingual elementary population housed there with that at the newly renovated Herman Badillo School on Elmwood, leaving the building empty.  

EVCS entered into an exhaustive process of community meetings, appraisals, engineer and environmental inspections, meetings with the city real estate, legal and common council members, bankers and developers.  We put together financial projections and submitted an offer.

Unfortunately a wide gap exists between two appraisals that were done for the property and the city real estate department and the Appraisal Review Board (ARB) has arbitrarily settled on a price in-between the two values, despite the preponderance of evidence supporting the lower figure and the testimony of two well-respected appraisers at the ARB meeting.

We need to show community support and so we're collecting comments -- of course all comments can be submitted -- but we're hoping that the community recognizes how our expansion into School 36 will be good not only for EVCS, but also Days Park, Allentown, as well as the entire city of Buffalo.  Not only will we be using a public school building for its intended purpose, and offering an excellent and safe education to (eventually) 450 kids, but we'll be adding jobs and helping to stabilize the neighborhood.  We intend on being good neighbors and partners in the community, as we have shown ourselves to be at our current site at 124 Elmwood.

Thanks for your comments and we look forward to hearing from you!

Liz Evans

Founder, Board President and Parent

EVCS

Welcome

Hello and welcome to all.

If you don't already know us, Elmwood Village Charter School is a public charter school in Buffalo New York, serving 175 children in grades K-6. EVCS was founded by 6 individuals in Buffalo who care about education and want to make Buffalo better, stronger and more sustainable. We've got great kids, families, teachers, staff and board members and we're working every day to make ourselves and our community better.

Please don't hesitate to let us know your thoughts.