The Board of Education of Anne Arundel County last night formally approved an agreement to open a contract school in Annapolis that provides another program of choice for students and their families and will help alleviate overcrowding at elementary schools in the Annapolis area.
Under the terms of the agreement, which was approved unanimously, Monarch Annapolis will eventually house approximately 800 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. The school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2017 with approximately 580 students in kindergarten through third grade, and grow by one grade each year.
The school will be operated by The Children’s Guild, which runs the Monarch Academy charter school in Glen Burnie and the Monarch Global Academy contract school in Laurel. It will be located in the former Capital-Gazette Newspapers building in Annapolis.
Monarch Annapolis will draw students from the Annapolis cluster, but students from other areas may apply if there are empty seats. Students who attend overcrowded schools in the Annapolis cluster will be given preference in a lottery if one is needed.
Like its sister school in Laurel, Monarch Annapolis will utilize the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme curriculum, and combine it with an arts integration. Those programs align with the IB and Performing and Visual Arts programs at the middle school and high school levels in the Annapolis cluster.