An embattled charter school in Anne Arundel County has abandoned its plans to expand and add high school grades, school officials said yesterday.
The move will force about 60 eighth- and ninth-graders at Chesapeake Science Point Charter School in Hanover to find another school in the fall.
Chesapeake Science Point, which has 218 students in grades six through nine, had planned to add a 10th grade next year and 11th and 12th grades in subsequent years. The school was developing an International Baccalaureate program.
The school's governing board decided this week to cancel the expansion plans because it would not be able to meet the Anne Arundel County school system's Feb. 23 deadline to provide officials with a lease and design specifications for a new high school.
"There were just too many demands for us to try to meet in that time frame," said Spear Lancaster, vice president and spokesman for the charter school's board.
The school faces an extended probation or possible closing if it doesn't solve several problems by Feb. 23, including hiring a licensed or certified special-education teacher; submitting details of a lease and design of a new space the school wants to rent for the next school year; and submitting a three-year budget that shows how the school plans to pay for growing enrollment to support a new grade each year through 2011.
The last two requirements forced the charter school board to reconsider its plans for a high school, Lancaster said.