Bear Creek site named a Charter School of the Year

BEAR CREEK TWP. – Fast enrollment growth and sharply rising state test scores earned Bear Creek Community Charter School the title of National Charter School of the Year from the Center for Education Reform. The nonprofit school choice advocacy organization gave the title to 53 schools nationwide.

Bear Creek’s Chief Academic Officer Janice Solkov was in Washington, D.C., to receive the honor.

“We have the right combination of staff members, teachers, students and school board to be a success.” Solkov said.

In a press release, Center for Education Reform President Jeanne Allen said Bear Creek and the other honorees “are among the vanguard of a school choice movement that provides more than 1 million children an educational opportunity that might otherwise be unavailable.”

The school was formed in 2004 after a cash-strapped Wilkes-Barre Area School District closed the building and started transporting students to other district schools. Many Bear Creek parents balked and banded together to reopen the building as a charter school. A charter school is a type of public school free of many state regulations.

It had 94 students in kindergarten through sixth grade on opening day. Since then enrollment has boomed, with 390 students this year and a waiting list for next year. Seventh and eighth grades have been added. The school board has installed two modular units to accommodate the growth, and Solkov said a third will be added this fall to house more students in the middle school grades.

State test scores in math and reading have skyrocketed, often placing among the best in Luzerne County.

According to the press release, the Center for Education Reform chooses honorees based on four themes: achievement, planning and execution, satisfaction, and policies and programs. Schools were chosen based on a survey conducted in the fall of 2006, with a small number of respondents chosen to provide more information.