Hundreds sign up for first ASU charter school

The first ASU-affiliated charter school is taking registration for its second year, and already hundreds have signed up.

Polytechnic Elementary School opened in the fall in an office complex near Warner and Power roads in east Mesa. There are 232 students enrolled at the kindergarten through sixth grade campus, with another 150 on a waiting list, said principal Donna Bullock.

The school will stay at its current location for another school year, with plans to open a new building in the 2010-11 school year at ASU Polytechnic. That campus would accommodate 1,450 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The school’s organizers are preparing to sell bonds to raise the funds needed for the 180,000-square-foot building.

During orientation meetings for fall enrollment, 200 to 300 students’ names were turned in for a March lottery to determine who will be admitted. There are two more orientation meetings scheduled for February.

The school will add seventh grade next year, said Larry Pieratt, executive director of University Public Schools, an affiliate of Arizona State University.

Pieratt said anyone interested in the school should get signed up, even if they end up on the waiting list. That way, he said, when the new campus opens, they’ll be notified.

Sixth-grader Brynn Cottle, 11, praises her new school.

“At first, when I got here, I thought ‘It’s a new school. It’s going to be weird,’” Cottle said. “But by the second week, I loved it here. I’m so glad they came up with this school.”

The difference, Cottle said, between this school and her previous one is the ability to stay with a topic until it’s mastered.

“At my old school they wouldn’t slow down,” she said. “Here, if you don’t get something they’ll take another week on the subject. It gives it another week to soak in your mind.”

Cottle and her fellow students this week were working on drama projects as part of their “summative,” or final presentation of the quarter.

“They use today what they learn today,” Pieratt said.

The Polytechnic Elementary School uses project-based learning, where students hit all the state standards through interests of their choosing. This quarter, students are looking at the Renaissance. Some lesson have used science and math in the building of catapults. Other lessons have involved music and theater.

“It’s gearing toward their interests,” Pieratt said. “That’s where they have their success.”

Each quarter, all students — including the young kindergartners — present to an audience of more than 200 parents and staff.

“We are very much project-based,” said Gene Garcia, vice president of ASU Education Partnerships. “Intellectually, kids go deep into content as opposed to covering a lot of content. Project learning is not common but it’s not a new idea.”

The other difference with the school is the team-teaching and grouping approach, Pieratt said. While kindergartners are by themselves, the next classes are groups of first-second grade, third-fourth grade and fifth-sixth grade. The students are in an extra-large room separated by only half a wall. There are two teachers and a full-time instructional assistant per grade grouping.

Each student has an individualized learning plan as well. Students are grouped together by abilities and progress, and those groups may change week-by-week, Bullock said.

Besides plans to build a new East Valley campus, University Public Schools is exploring offering a “school-within-a-school” through Phoenix Elementary School District in the fall, Pieratt said.

Learn more
What: Polytechnic Elementary School orientation meeting
When: 7 p.m. Feb. 12 and Feb. 25
Where: ASU Polytechnic’s Student Union, Cooley Ballroom
Information: To reserve a seat at the orientation, call (480) 727-1612 or RSVP to upsi@asu.edu
Web site: communityschoolasu.edu