Green Meadows withdraws charter school application

The Green Meadows Charter School has withdrawn their charter school application from the Ball State Office of Charter Schools.

The proposed school, which is designed to serve Monroe and surrounding counties, would receive public funding but operate independently of the Monroe County Community School Corporation.

Its academic focus is on environmental sustainability and social justice, which is taught using a curriculum inspired by Waldorf teaching and methodology, according to their website greenmeadowscharterschool.org.

“We plan on revising and resubmitting, so we aren’t going away,” said Mary Barr Goral, educational director of Green Meadows Charter School.

Robert Marra, executive director of Ball State University Office of Charter Schools, said a school could resubmit their charter application.

According to a post on the school’s Facebook page, “As many of you know by now, GMCS has decided to revise and resubmit the current proposal for a charter from Ball State University. This brings an opportunity for the Founders and Board of Directors to consider recent community feedback and make appropriate revisions to our proposal. We are, as always, deeply grateful for the support we have received to date, and will continue to be in touch as things change.”

GMCS had received opposition in Bloomington, and MCCSC was concerned about how it would affect their funding.

According to a Nov. 12 article in the Indiana Daily Student, Valerie Merriam, former MCCSC school board member, said during a community conversation about charter schools that when she lined up what Green Meadows proposed to do and what MCCSC already does, there was redundancy. The focuses of Green Meadows are already in place within MCCSC, she said.

“This would dilute or destroy some of our most successful programs,” Merriam said at the meeting.

The Green Meadows Charter application was first submitted in August 2012 and planned to open in fall 2015.

Currently, the Ball State Office of Charter Schools has not received any other applications for the Bloomington area, Marra said.

— Mary Hauber