APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A new charter school will be coming to Appleton for the 2024-2025 school year. It’s the result of a partnership between the district and a local organization, African Heritage Inc.
Providing a variety of educational options is a priority for officials with the Appleton Area School District. That’s on full display with the approval of the district’s 14th charter school.
“We look at all the different options that we provide families in hopes that one of them is going to meet the needs of their child,” Appleton School District Superintendent Greg Hartjes said.
In just over 10 months, Omolade Academy will open its doors to students in kindergarten through third grade. The school will place a focus on the cultural heritage of African descendants.
“School culture is not necessarily their own culture,” African Heritage Inc. President Juliet Cole said. “That’s why they have to learn, but how can we include their culture, how can we include who they are?”
The project has been in the works since fall 2022, when African Heritage Inc. approached the district with the idea.
“At that time there were not dollars available through the state grant program,” Hartjes said. “African Heritage Inc. applied for a federal grant and they found out late September that they did receive the grant.”
The school board had to give final approval to authorize the partnership. That came Monday night with a unanimous vote.
“Hosting and partnering with Omolade demonstrates that we, as a district, take action and that we walk the walk — that we will actually do the work to address these gaps instead of just paying lip service to the issue,” School Board Member Nick Ross said at the Nov. 27 meeting.
The source of funding and educational model have been determined; however, the location and number of students are still unknown.
“The staffing will be depending on enrollment so that’s a little bit challenging for us in terms of, we need to know how many students are going to be in the school at some point for us to start hiring staff,” Hartjes said.
However Hartjes says the district is confident they’ll have answers soon.
“We’ll work over the next two or three weeks to put together a timeline that prioritizes all of these pieces that need to be in place by next fall,” Hartjes said.
Omolade Academy will begin accepting applications Friday. The Appleton Area School District charter school application is a lottery process. For a complete list of charter schools in the Appleton school district, click here.
Click here to learn what it takes to qualify for a charter school in Wisconsin.
