The Journal Star’s website is not up-to-date this morning, but 1470 WMBD has the story:

The board voted 7-0 to allow the application process to begin for non-profit agencies who may want to operate the school. But the school board will still have a say on what benchmarks should be met and how often it’s presented with progress reports….

Cindy Fischer, a former District 150 Associate Superintendent, who is a working as a consultant on the issue says the charter school will be open to all District 150 students. There will be 288 students in grades 5 through 8 the first year expanding to include all high school grades and a total of 576 students in five years…. It’s hoped the charter school will begin in the fall of 2010.

For more information on the Math, Science & Technology Academy, see my previous post. It will be interesting to see who steps forward to operate this proposed charter school. The teacher’s union is opposed.

In other news, District 150 also voted unanimously to join the Enterprise Zone so that tax incentives can be doled out to developers from Champaign to build student housing on Main Street.

Note: I’m moving all the D150-related comments from the previous post to this one.