The Middleburg Charter School Committee submitted an application to the Loudoun County School Board last August and has been busy working out the details with a School Board charter review committee during a series of bi-monthly public meetings.

These meetings have covered the topics of governance, facilities, personnel, curriculum, special education, finances, and transportation.

If approved by the School Board, Middleburg Elementary School will convert to a public charter school and be operated under a multiyear contract with the School Board by a nonprofit corporation composed of community members, parents, and school staff. The new charter school, MCCS, hopes to give priority admission to children residing in the Middleburg community and will also be open to any child residing in Loudoun County. If those desiring admission exceed the capacity of the school of 137 students, then a lottery will be conducted to determine admissions.

MCCS is excited to offer an educational program that will provide our children an excellent education and will meet the needs of the community. It will include an innovative interdisciplinary curriculum, multi-age classes, all-day kindergarten, and a modified school year calendar.

MCCS will adopt the Leonardo Da Vinci program developed at Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington, VA. This curriculum was developed under the leadership of their award winning principal Miriam Hughey-Guy, who retired in 2013. She is serving as a consultant to the MCCS committee and, along with selected staff from Barcroft Elementary, will guide the MCCS staff in implementing a similar program at MCCS.

The program uses Leonardo Da Vinci as a model to inspire the children to develop their innate intellectual curiosity. A thematic, project-based, interdisciplinary curriculum will employ unifying topics to provide context for teaching and practicing the various disciplines of math, language arts, science, social studies, history, art, music and PE. Barcroft's program is aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning.

Unlike traditional elementary schools, MCCS will not have children separated by grade and taught multiple subjects by a single grade level teacher. Grades K-2 will be combined into one class while grades 3 through 5 will be combined into a separate class with the number of classrooms of each grouping determined by student enrollment.

Combining children across age groups allows younger students to see models for learning in older children, provides mentoring opportunities for older children in a class, and ensures continuity of child-teacher relationships across several years. Instead of all teachers covering every discipline, teachers with experience and qualifications in either math or language arts will teach primarily those subjects to multiple classrooms and mentor younger teachers as they develop expertise in their chosen area.

Full-day kindergarten gives children the extra instruction at a young age that research shows has major benefits. A modified year-round calendar reduces the long summer break, when children lose ground academically. School opens in early August. Two-week breaks, called intercessions, are scheduled between quarters, one between the late summer and fall quarters and another between the winter and spring quarters. Intercessions include opportunities for remedial studies for children as well as enrichment classes or camps depending on the interest of the students.

Parents and community members are invited to hear more about MCCS at a public meeting at Middleburg Elementary School on Monday, February 3rd at 6:30pm. Miriam Hughey-Guy will attend the meeting as well as members of the Loudoun County School Board's Charter Review Committee and everyone will be available to answer questions.

For more information please contact MCCS at 540-505-0456 or by emailing middleburgcharterschool@gmail.com.