PALESTINE — Up to 30 students will be admitted into each grade during the first year of the Palestine campus of the University of Texas at Tyler’s Innovation Academy, school leaders said Thursday.

Approximately 40 persons attended a public meeting conducted Thursday night by officials of the state-funded charter school.

Dr. Wesley Hickey, superintendent of the Innovation Academy, and Eli Crow, the charter school’s executive director, opened the meeting by presenting information about the school and then fielded questions from the audience, roughly half of whom were employees or representatives of local public school districts.

The UT Tyler Innovation Academy is expected to open for the beginning of the 2012-13 school year and will initially offer grades three through six. A grade will be added annually until the campus ultimately has students in the third through 12th grades.

Similar campuses in Tyler and Longview are also expected to debut in the fall.

As a state funded charter school, there will be no tuition.

The State Board of Education granted a charter to the Innovation Academy this past November, with UT Tyler recently receiving final approval from the Texas Education Agency.

Hickey said Thursday that up to 30 students will be accepted in each of the four grades next fall in Palestine. If more than 30 students apply for a grade, then a lottery would be held in Tyler, probably around the end of March, to determine those selected to attend the charter school.

“Decisions have to be made” by both parents and the school, Hickey said, referring to the March lottery date.

The charter school will not be limited to Palestine residents. Crow said he envisioned students potentially coming from as far away as 50 miles.

“They can come from Frankston,” Crow said. “They can come from Elkhart.”

The Innovation Academy will feature a shortened, four-hour school day, stressing student engagement and parental involvement, according to Hickey. Technology- and project-based learning will be at the forefront, he indicated.

“I’m going to tell you what we’re not,” Hickey told the crowd. “We have no desire to be a traditional school. We’re not competing with Palestine or anything down the line.”

“We want kids creating things,” Crow explained. “We want them associated with developing some products.”

Initially, there will be no bus transportation or meals, according to Hickey.

Hickey said students will be involved in learning from the time they arrive on campus each day.

“We don’t want to sit around in gyms and just wait,” Hickey said. “We don’t want to have dead time...From the time they walk in until they leave, they will be focused and engaged.”

The charter school’s superintendent indicated that siblings applying for the charter school will not be separated. If one member of an immediate family is accepted, all the children in that family — as long as their grade is being offered at the school — will be accepted, he said.

“We want to keep families together,” Hickey said, “and we realize potentially that is a problem.”

Some audience members expressed concerns about whether the charter school would result in lower enrollment for local public schools, while the issue of potential lack of cultural diversity was also raised.

“We’re not trying to be like public schools,” Hickey said. “Even the four-hour day is totally different. We’re not trying to compete with them at all.”

Hickey said his 16-year-old daughter is “very active in athletics” and other extracurricular activities and attends public school.

“It’s (the Innovation Academy) not something that’s for her,” he explained. “For her, it’s a traditional school environment.”

One member of the audience said the lack of bus transportation and lunch could result in a low concentration of minority students.

“If you don’t provide buses and you don’t provide lunch,” the man said, “you will not have a culturally-diverse school.”

Another attendee agreed.

“I don’t think it’s the intent,” the person stated, “but I think it might become the reality.”

“We’re an open enrollment school,” Hickey responded, “and we’re certainly not trying to leave anybody out.”

For more information about the Innovation Academy or to download an application, persons should visit www.uttia.org

Although a school calendar has not been finalized, Hickey said he anticipated the 2012-13 school year kicking off Monday, Aug. 27 which is the same start date for public schools in Texas. Also like public schools, the charter school will offer 180 instructional days during the school year.

A second local public meeting will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6 at Mathis Hall on UT Tyler’s Palestine campus.



Paul Stone may be contacted via e-mail at pstone@palestineherald.com