Changing Visions

Charter School Announces Partnership

- seeks more students, new location

BY LAUREN WILLIAMSON
Record Staff Writer

Sunday, February 19, 2006

CLAREMONT -- Craig Willis stands firmly behind the charter school philosophy: Offer smaller class sizes. Give students more individualized attention and instruction. They will succeed.

Willis is director of Visions Charter School in Claremont, Catawba County’s only charter school. The K-6 school is free and open to the public. Parents choose Visions because of the one-on-one attention the staff offers to students on all achievement levels, Willis said. “We try to meet the needs of every child, whether they’re gifted, average or challenged,” he said. “In lots of schools, they just try to meet the needs of the middle-level students.”

Enrollment numbers have dropped drastically in the past several years, though, he said. Currently, the school instructs 59 students. Willis hopes the number will increase, and soon. The school needs six students by the end of the school year or Visions will have to shut its doors. In December, the North Carolina Charter School Advisory Committee informed Willis the school’s charter could not be renewed since it does not have 65 students, a requirement for all state charter schools.

Willis hopes a partnership with Imagine Schools will help the school attract more students and provide more opportunities for them. An operating agreement was signed Tuesday. Imagine Schools is a nonprofit, national organization that runs charter schools across the country. Kestrel Heights School in Durham is the only other charter school in the state managed by the company.

The partnership will change the way the school looks and is managed, Willis said. “We hope to attract new people, improve test scores and possibly move our location,” Willis said. “We need to reinvent ourselves.”

Willis said the school is looking for property in the Hickory area, where he believes more students can be served.

lwilliamson@hickoryrecord.com | 322-4510 x5408 or 304-6915

SCHOOL FACTS

Director: Craig Willis
Grades: K-6
Number of students: 59

In the 2004-05 school year, Visions did not make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. The school met one out of three AYP targets. The school was designated a priority school, since only 50 to 60 percent of its students were at grade level.

DETAILS

For more information about:
Visions Charter School - Call 459-2051 or go to www.visionscharterschool.org.
Imagine Schools - Call (703) 527-2600 or go to www.imagineschools.com.

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