A La Mesa charter school is working to accommodate some of its students after failing to obtain necessary permits for a new location and initially turning away most new applicants.
Families were informed through a letter late last month that their child no longer had a seat at Sparrow Academy, a K-8 school authorized by the La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools district, because the location they had planned for an expansion was not properly permitted. Parents, once sold on the school’s kindergarten play-based learning, told inewsource they were worried about their child’s academic performance at another school.
But within days of receiving inewsource inquiries about students being disenrolled, Sparrow Academy walked back part of that decision.
Some families said Sparrow reached out late last week informing them that the school could accommodate their children, after all, by combining classes – something parents say it was already doing since at least the previous year.
Through on-site classes and a homeschool program, Sparrow Academy served some 400 students last school year. It originally launched in 2008 as Xara Gardens, a charter school then authorized by Lakeside Union School District out of a need for “alternative methods to education” in San Diego County, but has since undergone several name and location changes.
The school is a member of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education and uses curriculum aligned with the phases of child development and a focus on conscious relationships with oneself and others.
Its campus is owned and located on the La Mesa Seventh-Day Adventist Community Church.
Read the full article on inewsource.org.
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