Three charter schools coming to Cedar Rapids by fall 2025

CEDAR RAPIDS — Three charter schools are expected to open in Cedar Rapids by the fall of 2025 after the Iowa State Board of Education approved the applications earlier this month.

One of the charter schools, which will be called Empowering Excellence, is being opened by Cedar Rapids resident and former educator Sarah Swayze. She is hoping to attract high school juniors and seniors to the school who otherwise are at risk of dropping out of high school.

“I feel like this is a step that Cedar Rapids needs to catch those kids that are not successful in a traditional school,” Swayze said.

In total, eight charter school applications were approved Jan. 11, for proposed schools in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. Already, there are three charter schools in Iowa. Most recently, Horizon Science Academy opened this fall in Des Moines.

Swayze said she hopes to launch Empowering Excellence this fall with no more than 78 students, and grow the program to about 170 students within the first five years. The charter school’s curriculum would be offered through the online learning platform Edmentum.

Swayze also operates Empowering Youths of Iowa, a nonprofit that provides one-on-one mentoring to students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District. It has helped dozens of students graduate high school since June 2021 by providing them a safe space to learn and lunch during the week.

Currently, about 60 students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District use Empowering Youths of Iowa’s services. It will continue operating separately from the charter school to help improve graduation rates in Cedar Rapids.

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But with two other charter schools planning to open their doors to K-12 kids in Cedar Rapids in fall 2025, Swayze is worried about the impact charter schools will have on traditional public schools.

“I want a small group of kids. Now that I look at the larger picture with three charter schools coming to Cedar Rapids, I recognize that is a major impact,” she said.

Out-of-state companies’ schools could serve 1,500 CR students

The other charter schools — which plan to open in Cedar Rapids for the fall of 2025 — will offer a combined K-12 education with an emphasis on career exploration beginning in kindergarten. The two schools could serve around 1,500 students total.

CIVICA, a company based in Florida with charter schools in Florida, Colorado and Nevada, is proposing opening K-5th grade elementary schools in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. CIVICA is looking for a property to build a “brand-new facility” in the Cedar Rapids Community School District attendance zone, according to the application.

Quest Forward, which has schools in California and Nebraska, is proposing opening a 6-12th grade school in Cedar Rapids. They are evaluating existing school buildings and properties for building a new school in Cedar Rapids.

Mike Huguelet, executive director of the Iowa Coalition for Public Charter Schools, said the schools are looking for property in Cedar Rapids near the “lowest performing schools.”

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“If a family is saying they don’t want to be in a middle school with 750 students, we’re that option for them,” Huguelet said.

The Iowa Coalition for Public Charter Schools, which launched last spring, is in its first year. The coalition helped facilitate applications to launch five of the eight new public charter schools in Iowa.

“Charters are a reaction to a need for a new school model or to failure,” Huguelet said, adding that charters provide opportunities residents “want and need.”

Quest Forward eventually will enroll about 100 students per grade level in 6-12, said Ray Ravaglia, senior adviser at Opportunity Education, Quest Forward’s parent company.

It will start with sixth- and ninth-graders, and grow the middle and high school programs as those students rise through the system. Ravaglia hopes for about 40 to 60 kids per grade in the first year.

Ravaglia said Quest Forward hopes to hire a principal and teachers local to Cedar Rapids who know the community.

“What we offer is relentlessly focused on active, engaged learning,” Ravaglia said. “I think there’s a lot of value in letting parents make choices about which school best serves their children.”

Tuition-free charter schools receive per-pupil state aid in Iowa

In Iowa, local tax dollars remain with traditional public school districts, and charters are not currently eligible to receive the same state categorical funds that traditional schools receive, said Emily Reiman, enrollment coordinator at Horizon Science Academy in Des Moines.

Charter schools are tuition-free schools families can voluntarily enroll in that are publicly funded but independently run under an approved charter with the state. In Iowa, charter schools receive per-pupil state aid.

Charter schools do not select students and do not charge tuition. If more students apply to enroll in the charter school than there are seats available, students will be accepted through a lottery.

The other charter school applicants that have been approved are:

“Charter schools aren’t trying to take over public education. The majority of kids will still go to their traditional local high school, but we offer something different families want and need,” Huguelet said.

Oakmont in Des Moines, for example, will offer students education in skilled trades and partner with local industries like Habitat for Humanity where students will build houses to get experience in construction, plumbing, carpentry and electrical.

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Quest Forward will “rethink education in a way that focuses on student engagement, active learning and using technology to facilitate what’s happening in the classroom and not replace it,” Ravaglia said.

It’s an “alternative choice” to traditional public school and strives to prepare students “for life,” whether that’s going to a four-year college, trade school or on-the-job learning, Ravaglia said.

Traditional public schools have “much less opportunity for distinctiveness,” Ravaglia said.

“With charter schools being independently managed, each of them can have their own identity and personality. It helps parents really make a decision on what is going to fit their child,” Ravaglia said.

Public schools investing in career education

As charter schools offering career exploration to students look to make their home in Cedar Rapids, traditional public schools in the area already have a renewed focus on creating college and career pathways.

The Cedar Rapids Community School District recently created a task force for strategic planning collaboration to provide input on four to six high-skill. high-wage, and high-demand career pathways that meet the demands of the Cedar Rapids area labor market, among other things.

The school district also contracted Steele Dynamics Consulting Services to help develop a three- to five-year action plan to create college and career pathways — starting as early as elementary school.

There are six magnet schools for students from kindergarten through high school in the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

The district’s annual magnet school lottery gives families options to choose which school is right for their child. Magnet schools offer theme-based learning — such as science, technology, engineering, arts and math; or leadership and entrepreneurship, for instance.

In August, the district launched City View Community High School where students spend a majority of their time engaged in project-based work. Classes are designed to give students access to area professionals, possibly introducing them to a new career they might otherwise be unaware of.

In the Cedar Rapids Community School District “we firmly believe that every student deserves a high-quality education that prepares them for success in college, career and life,” Superintendent Tawana Grover said in an email to The Gazette. “Our District is not only offering magnet programming, advanced placement and college credit-earning courses but also collaborating with the larger community to expand students' plans and pathways toward achieving more than a high school diploma.

“We are continually working towards providing more choices with college and career-connected learning, and I am confident that we will continue to make a significant impact on the lives of our students and the larger community," Grover said.

The Iowa City Community School District also is putting a greater emphasis in career exploration for students as early as sixth grade as it transitions from a junior high to middle school model this fall.

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com