CAPE School secures 15-year charter extension
Medicine Hat’s charter school will be sticking around for years to come.
CAPE School announced this week that a 15-year charter extension has been granted by Education Minister Adriana LaGrange.
Superintendent Teresa Di Ninno is excited for the future of the school.
“Five years ago we were rewriting our charter and asked for 15 years, but we didn’t get it because we were reworking the charter. It made sense at that time,” she said. “We reapplied this past December for a 15-year charter and we received it.
“It was really great for us to get the 15 years and we were happy to hear that good news.”
De Ninno says the school now has more time to focus on its goals.
“We have more stability and a longer timeframe to develop areas of the program that need it,” she said. “It also gives us more time to address any issues found in the evaluation.
“It gives us a little more breathing room to just focus on what we want to do here.” CAPE School serves about 270 students in the community and has a capacity for 340. The school has seen an increase of 70 students in the past couple years.
When charter schools first came to be, the province had three- or five-year terms before the school would have to reapply for their charter. De Ninno says the 15-year term is better for all parties.
“Every time we apply for a new charter we go under a review and we show the province that we are fulfilling what our charter sets out to do,” she said. “With three or five years, it’s really not much time for us to show concrete results. So with the 15 years we can really take time and show that what we have set out to do is working.”