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http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/06/14/charter_school_for_deaf_to_close/
CONCORD, N.H. --A charter school for the deaf is closing after its first full year of operation because of low enrollment.
The only public school dedicated to sign language in the state, the Laurent Clerc Academy in Concord was unable to hit its target goal of 10 children, despite over $500,000 in state and federal aid. Of six pupils enrolled at the school, three are deaf and three are the children of the school's director and only full-time teacher, a married couple.
Citing confidentiality, school director Susan Brule declined to say how many of the deaf pupils also are her children.
"It's not about which of those children who were hearing or deaf were my children. That's not the issue," she said Wednesday.
But state Board of Education member Fred Bramante said there were concerns early on about the school's family ties. "When we found out a year ago that they only had a few kids in the school, and they were the children of the people running the school, it raised eyebrows at the Board of Education," he said. "We clearly did not intend for a school that was catering to just their kids."
Brule's husband, Mario Mauro, is the school's full-time teacher. When it opened midway through the 2004-2005 academic year, the school had four students -- Brule and Mauro's three children and one other child.
Fran Jacques, whose 13-year-old son has attended the school since it opened in 2005, said it never bothered her that the director's family made up so much of the staff and student body.
"They treated their children just like any other student," she said.
Brule and Mauro were recruited to open a deaf school in New Hampshire because the state has a high dropout rate for deaf students, Brule said.
She blamed low enrollment on a lack of awareness about the school's bilingual method, which teaches American Sign Language as deaf students' native language, and printed English as their second language.
"At this point no one is seeing this as an option," she said.
The Laurent Clerc Academy, named for the first deaf teacher in America, and developed by Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, was granted a five-year charter. It will retain its space and continue operating in a "planning period" Brule said.
Its charter application said the school planned to expand from a kindergarten-through-eighth grade elementary school to include high school grades and hoped to have 20 to 24 students by its second year. Instead, the school will stop offering classes at the end of this academic year, though Brule hopes the closure is temporary.
"We'd open in a heartbeat if we had a sufficient number of students enrolled," she said.
The deaf school is the second New Hampshire charter school to close this year. The Franklin Career Academy, the state's first charter school, shut down because of money problems.
Bramante said the closures show how difficult it can be to start a school from scratch.
"Obviously, in any of these presentations, there's hopefully a 'build on it and they will come' process," he said. "But sometimes you build it, and they don't come ... We've been concerned about low enrollment since the moment it opened."
CONCORD, N.H. --A charter school for the deaf is closing after its first full year of operation because of low enrollment.
The only public school dedicated to sign language in the state, the Laurent Clerc Academy in Concord was unable to hit its target goal of 10 children, despite over $500,000 in state and federal aid. Of six pupils enrolled at the school, three are deaf and three are the children of the school's director and only full-time teacher, a married couple.
Citing confidentiality, school director Susan Brule declined to say how many of the deaf pupils also are her children.
"It's not about which of those children who were hearing or deaf were my children. That's not the issue," she said Wednesday.
But state Board of Education member Fred Bramante said there were concerns early on about the school's family ties. "When we found out a year ago that they only had a few kids in the school, and they were the children of the people running the school, it raised eyebrows at the Board of Education," he said. "We clearly did not intend for a school that was catering to just their kids."
Brule's husband, Mario Mauro, is the school's full-time teacher. When it opened midway through the 2004-2005 academic year, the school had four students -- Brule and Mauro's three children and one other child.
Fran Jacques, whose 13-year-old son has attended the school since it opened in 2005, said it never bothered her that the director's family made up so much of the staff and student body.
"They treated their children just like any other student," she said.
Brule and Mauro were recruited to open a deaf school in New Hampshire because the state has a high dropout rate for deaf students, Brule said.
She blamed low enrollment on a lack of awareness about the school's bilingual method, which teaches American Sign Language as deaf students' native language, and printed English as their second language.
"At this point no one is seeing this as an option," she said.
The Laurent Clerc Academy, named for the first deaf teacher in America, and developed by Northeast Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, was granted a five-year charter. It will retain its space and continue operating in a "planning period" Brule said.
Its charter application said the school planned to expand from a kindergarten-through-eighth grade elementary school to include high school grades and hoped to have 20 to 24 students by its second year. Instead, the school will stop offering classes at the end of this academic year, though Brule hopes the closure is temporary.
"We'd open in a heartbeat if we had a sufficient number of students enrolled," she said.
The deaf school is the second New Hampshire charter school to close this year. The Franklin Career Academy, the state's first charter school, shut down because of money problems.
Bramante said the closures show how difficult it can be to start a school from scratch.
"Obviously, in any of these presentations, there's hopefully a 'build on it and they will come' process," he said. "But sometimes you build it, and they don't come ... We've been concerned about low enrollment since the moment it opened."