FLINT, MI – A high-profile charter school recently opened its doors in Flint.
The school has 375 students, 80 percent living in Flint zip codes, who started school the last week of August. Each day, students spend 90 minutes of instructional time in one of the Cultural Center locations. The Flint Public Library also serves as the school’s library.
“Walking across the (Cultural) campus students can experience the performing, the visual, the fine arts as well as planetarium… really looks at (a) new concept in education differently,” said Eric Lieske, chief executive officer of the Flint Cultural Center Academy.
Lieske was superintendent of Davison Community Schools for nine years and served in the district for 20 years before taking the leadership role at FCCA. The Flint Cultural Center includes the Flint Institute of Arts, Sloan Museum, Longway Planetarium and Flint Institute of Music.
A total of 959 applications were received for the school’s inaugural school year for about 375 seats that were available in kindergarten through fifth grade. A lottery was carried out by a certified public accountant firm on May 6 to choose students for the school’s first year of enrollment.
Parents apparently like what they’ve heard so far about Flint Cultural Center Academy– one of just 21 Microsoft Flagship Schools, a program the technology company launched last year with a goal of helping to transform education from the ground up. It includes assistance with early building design and new technologies for teachers.
The school is built to serve three sections of kindergarten through eighth grade. Three sections of kindergarten, first and second grades is offered this fall and two sections of third, fourth and fifth grades.
Plans call for the school to expand to about 650 students once a sixth grade is added after the first year of operation, seventh grade is added after the second year and eighth grade is included after the third year.
The 78,000-square-foot school in Flint includes 27 classrooms, a gymnasium, what officials call multiple collaborative learning spaces, as well as direct access to the Flint Institute of Music and Sloan through hallways.
Each classroom seats 25 to 26 students, Lieske said. Teacher’s have mobile monitors and there aren’t standalone desks and chairs, but rolling tables promoting a more active learning space.
At the front of the school is the Learning Stair Case, which seats more than 200 students. The space is used to start the day with a CREW lesson centered around being Courteous, Respectful, Engaged and Welcoming.
Kindergarten through third grade classrooms are on the first floor of the building and fourth through eighth grade classrooms are on the second floor. Most of the classrooms, expect kindergarten classes, are in triads connected through a team room that can be used for student intervention or advancement, Lieske said.
The school also features project rooms for students to tinker and build, science labs and breakout spaces in the hallway. The school provides students with four uniforms, Lieske said.
FCCA will hold an open house for the public to tour the school on Sept. 18 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
