Five months and one day ago the Intent letter to create a charter school in Danbury was filed, with the state of New Hampshire.
Since that time we have had five community update and organizational meetings, met with the select board, the Danbury Elementary School Principal, the SAU Superintendent and completed our charter training with the state of New Hampshire.
The charter was written, completed, then submitted to the state legal department. They go through the charter to ensure it is legal and meets the requirements. It was sent on May 13th and we just received the good news that it passed the state legal process and we are now waiting for our peer review. Congratulations and a huge thank you to everyone who helped write the charter, offer ideas and supported the process. Now that it has passed the legal portion, it will be posted on our website. This is not a legal document until the peer review is completed. Once it becomes a legal document we will then proceed to establish the charter school as a non profit organization. Currently the Danbury Education Foundation is accepting all of our donations.
We have had a fundraiser asking people who attended Danbury Elementary School to donate $20. (This demonstrates support). We have also had a dinner, generously put on by the Blazing Star Grange and an information table and raffle at Ragged Mountain Resort’s Kinfolk music festival. To date we have Seven thousand dollars and thirty thousand dollars pledged once a building is secured. Overall not bad for five months, when we were originally told it would take 6-8 months just to write the charter.
Speaking of buildings, we would like to thank Tim Carney for sharing his knowledge and skill in completing the facility portion of the charter. Due to family health issues he will be taking a different role more as an advisor. On August 8th Audrey Pellegrino attended the SAU school board meeting. Originally the plan had been to attend a non public session and discuss purchasing the building. The SAU did not file the necessary paperwork to close the school by July 1st so they can not sell the building at this time, They do have the option to lease it to someone for a year and then bring it to the voters the following year, once the paperwork is completed. There are other options as well, please see the SAU school board meeting to become familiar with them. Of course the option we would like is to have the building released to the town of Danbury and the Charter school to then lease/buy/use the building to offer a school in our town.
A letter written to the Danbury Select board was read at this time.
We would like to ask for your support . You can write to the select board requesting they request eh building, formally from the SAU. You can write the SAU School Board and request they sell the building to the town of Danbury for one dollar, which has been the thing historically done. And please watch the school board itinerary and anytime they have Danbury Elementary School/Building on their agenda, please attend the meeting.
Next Month on Saturday, September 12th is the Danbury Grange and Community Fair. During the Ragged Mountain Resort’s Music Festival, the Kinfolk Music organization donated a one hundred dollar Visa card to the charter school. We raffled it off and the winners John and Lucy Morrison very generously donated it back to the Charter School. We would like to raffle it off at the Grange and Community Fair. We will have an information table at the edge of the Danbury Country Store parking lot and North Road. The winner of the raffle will be drawn and announced , after bingo, which will be around 4:30. A petition to sign demonstrating support of the Charter School and requesting the Danbury Elementary School building will also be available to sign at that time.
Volunteers to man the table are:
Karen Padgett 10-12
Rachel Bujnowski 11-1
Anna Offen 1-2