Parents and guardians who are interested in having their children attend the new Monarch Academy Annapolis Public Contract School next fall can submit an application now through February 1, 2017.
The school, which will draw about 530 students in kindergarten through fifth grade and will be open to elementary students from the Annapolis cluster, will open in September 2017. It will operate in space formerly occupied by Capital-Gazette Newspapers just off West Street in Annapolis.
“The news that developers of the site now have the permits from the City of Annapolis needed to get the school ready to open next fall is awesome for our students and their families, and I want to thank County Executive Steve Schuh for his support in making this critical educational opportunity a reality,” Superintendent George Arlotto said. “This school will ease overcrowding in the Annapolis cluster and offer a school choice previously not available to students in Annapolis. It will also provide a pathway to the Performing and Visual Arts (PVA) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs in place at Annapolis and Bates middle schools.”
The school will be the third operated by The Children’s Guild, which also runs a charter school in Glen Burnie and a contract school in Laurel. The Annapolis school will offer the IB Primary Years Programme, a precursor to the IB Middle Years Programme at Annapolis Middle School. Monarch’s arts integration emphasis will also prepare students for Bates Middle School’s PVA program.
Applications are open only to students who currently live within the attendance boundaries of the nine elementary schools in the Annapolis cluster: Annapolis, Eastport, Georgetown East, Germantown, Hillsmere, Mills-Parole, Rolling Knolls, Tyler Heights, and West Annapolis.
Should the number of applications exceed the number of available seats, a lottery will be held to determine enrollment. To help achieve the school system’s desire to ease overcrowding, any lottery will be weighted. Students who currently attend Germantown, Hillsmere, and Tyler Heights elementary schools will receive a weight of 2, with other students currently attending Annapolis cluster schools and those currently living within the Annapolis cluster boundaries but not attending a public school receiving a weight of 1.
Parents wishing to submit an application can do so online at www.monarchacademy.org/Annapolis. That page can also be accessed from the slideshow on the front page of the Anne Arundel County Public Schools’ website, www.aacps.org.
The Children’s Guild will host open houses at both existing Monarch schools at 6:30 p.m. on December 13, 2016, for families interested in learning more about the schools. For more information visit www.monarchacademy.org/annapolis, call 443-449-2757, or send email to MAAApplications@MonarchAcademyAnnapolis.org.