“I want to thank you for signing our charter. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
CHICOPEE – Five hundred students are on the waiting list for the Hampden Charter School of Science.
That’s one of the things state Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education Mitchell D. Chester learned when he toured that school on Friday.
He also learned that the school, founded in 2009, serves 292 students from Springfield, West Springfield, Chicopee and Ludlow. This year it covers grades 6 to 11. Next year grade 12 will be added.
The commissioner spoke to students, staff and parents.
Harun Celik, principal at the school, gave him some of the reasons his school is in high demand: small classes, individualized attention, emphasis on college preparation, strong math and science curriculum.
Applicants are chosen by lottery to give everyone a fair chance. The school’s population will max out at 350 to preserve its intimacy.
Parents who had come to meet the commissioner were eager to praise the school. “It’s done so much for our son,” said Bob Lafleur, of Springfield. “That’s why we love to show our support.”
Joseph Grasty, of Springfield, said his son entered the school last year. “My son’s autistic,” he said, “and he was actually getting lost in the Springfield school system. When he got here, he grew right away. He’s very bright. The sky’s the limit.”
As the commissioner toured the classrooms, he found kids clustered in little groups, all looking sharp in tan slacks and navy (middle school) and maroon (high school) tops.
One young man was using a marker to answer questions about chloroplast and mitochondrion cells on a Smartboard. Another was measuring the force needed to drag a weight up a hill improvised out of two textbooks.
Chester also visited English and social studies classrooms and heard a student chorus sing an old English ballad.
Ninth-grader Miles Hyman, of Springfield, whose younger brother Maxwell also attends the school, presented the commissioner with a gift of a landscape he had painted.
“I want to thank you for signing our charter,” said Miles. “Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
Close partnerships between parents and the school includes home visits. Parents soon learn the school has many ways to involve them, from “Parents’ Night” to “Donuts with Dad” to a Website that allows them to check homework.
Celik is big on the state-wide Science Olympiad competition, and said the school has been steadily creeping upward ever since placing seventh out of 30 the first year.
The school is also heavy on multiculturalism. Celik himself was born in Turkey, graduated from college in Russia, earned his master’s degree at Farleigh-Dickinson in New Jersey. He taught at a charter school in New Jersey before being recruited for the School of Science.
“You have a great opportunity here,” Chester told students. “Work hard!”