Ripon School District Receives Charter School Planning Grant
3 July 2018 News
The Ripon Area School District is receiving a $900,000 grant to plan and implement a charter school. It will be a virtual school. District Superintendent Mary Whitrock says when they surveyed parents involved in the open enrollment process they found that some students were leaving the district for virtual school programs. She says, “We actually had parents from our district who had open enrolled to a virtual charter school in Merrill, Wisconsin reach out to us and say hey if you ever open a charter school if you utilize this model we would love to be back here in Ripon.” She says the virtual school will be founded in project-based learning. Whitrock notes although it will be a virtual school where contact is mostly through computer there will be face-to-face conferences and in the earlier grades a significant amount of parent involvement. The Ripon Area School District was one of 26 programs to get grant funding from the state for charter school planning, opening or expanding. The state’s Department of Public Instruction approved a total of $17 million in grants.
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