Bear Creek Community Charter School strategic plan will add 200 students

BEAR CREEK TOWNSHIP — Bear Creek Community Charter School announced a new Strategic Growth Plan calling for an increase in maximum student enrollment of 200.

“Based on the number of students on the school’s wait list over the past ten years, there is clearly a demonstrated demand for the school’s educational program,” a media release said. “Increasing enrollment will help meet this overwhelming demand, as well as create an opportunity for expanding diversity within the student population.”

The release took a swing at critics of charter schools, using the “school choice” label embraced by charters, which are public schools funded by tax dollars but free of some state restrictions traditional public schools must meet.

“The strategic plan will also help ensure the school’s long-term viability amid ongoing efforts by those who oppose school choice, including proposed cuts to charter school funding and implementing more burdensome regulation.” The last part of the statement was an apparent reference to Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget, which revamps funding for charter schools.

“This plan positions the school to offer more families in the Wyoming Valley options in public education,” Chief Executive Officer Jim Smith said in the release. By state law, brick and mortar charter schools can enroll students outside of the district in which the building sits. “We believe the culture created within our school environment is something families desire; and having more of an option to choose is what families deserve.”

Bear Creek plans to add additional sections of kindergarten through eighth grade over six years, beginning this fall. The plan also calls for construction of an expanded facility beginning “in the near future.”

The idea of charter schools was initially proposed as a collaboration: a school district would “charter” a new school that would operate differently, trying out new ideas. Successes would then be tried at the district level. But charters were quickly viewed as competition with districts. It was common for districts to deny charters when requested, forcing those hoping to establish one to appeal. In Pennsylvania, charter organizers can appeal all the way to the state.

By contrast, online cyber charter schools are chartered by the state.

Wilkes-Barre Area denied Bear Creek’s charter application, and the effort was appealed all the way to the state, which approved the application. It remains Luzerne County’s only brick and mortar charter school.

The notion of a brick and mortar charter school in Luzerne County arose after Wilkes-Barre Area School District closed Bear Creek Elementary School in 2002 as a cost-cutting measure. The venerable building, constructed as part of the depression-era Work Progress Administration, had been deeded to the the School District of Bear Creek Township and became part of the Wilkes-Barre Area district when various districts merged. But a covenant of the gift of the building — part of the estate of Brigadier General Paul Ambrose Oliver — was that it always be used as a public school.

The building re-opened as Bear Creek Community Charter for the start of the 2004-05 school year. The charter only calls for grade K-8, and organizers have never attempted to expand the charter to include higher grades.

Enrollment quickly outgrew the original building, and even outgrown added space, so a new school was built, opening in 2016, a roomy 63,000 square feet on 307 acres of mostly wooded land near the southeast edge of Luzerne County. The school has long cited a significant waiting list as proof of continued success, but until now had not announced plans to expand enrollment. According to the state, school enrollment is 465