Mar 2, 2017 2 min read

NEW EAGLE – Ringgold School Board rejected an application to form a charter school in the district, handing its representatives a one-inch-thick report Wednesday outlining the reasons why it doesn’t qualify to open.

Prominence Charter School expected the rejection, and it intends to review the report with its attorney and then revise and resubmit the application to open for the 2018-19 term, said Dana Moreno, an educator affiliated with the charter school.

“That is very common in the first round of a charter approval process,” Moreno said.

She said the school board seemed to be most concerned with the charter school’s budgeting process and its location.

The charter school is hoping to open in the former Monongahela Elementary Center, a building that has become a blight problem since Ringgold closed it in 2011. She said locating the school there would be a benefit to the community.

Ringgold board President William Stein Jr. said the district wants to withhold commenting on the report until Prominence has a chance to review the document.

“This was quite an exhaustive, due-diligence process by our executive staff, teachers and a couple members of the board,” Stein said Thursday.

“The committee felt it didn’t rise to the standards set forth by the state Department of Education,” he added.

Stein said Prominence is projecting a significant enrollment and that Ringgold would have to pay the tuition for its students as the home school.

Moreno said her school is accepting pre-enrollment applications, and that 80 prospective students already had applied. The school plans to accept 450 students at maximum.

“We have our foot in the door,” she said. “That’s what’s important.”