Charter school makes first hire

The York Academy Regional Charter School, a new charter school in York that will bring city and suburban students together starting in September 2011, hired its first staff person. Kathleen Eshbach was approved Dec. 13 as the school's first chief academic officer. She is assistant principal at Spring Grove Elementary School in Spring Grove School District. She will assume her new position Feb. 1. A York Daily Record story this week provided more details.

The hiring marked another significant milestone for the school, which emerged from YorkCounts' Metro-York process as a way to deal with the education challenges posed by concentrated poverty in the city. The public charter school came about through the collaboration of the three chartering school districts - York City, York Suburban and Central York.

School officials are also preparing for the effort to enroll the first group of students. The school will open with three grades - three classes each for kindergarten, first and second - with a total of around 225 students. To fill those slots, the school will soon begin the process of distributing brochures to families in the three chartering districts. Brochures and applications will also be mailed to families that had expressed an interest in the school earlier this year. Parents that want to enroll their kids in the school will be able to do so early in 2011.

Around the same time, the school will begin advertising for the first teaching positions. About 50 staff members will eventually be employed by the school, which is located in the heart of the Northwest Triangle project a short walk from Central Market, the Strand-Capitol and Sovereign Bank Stadium.

Finally, the school continues to add more information to its Web site, http://www.yorkarcs.org/. Go there and get a sense of the mission and vision of the school, see the backgrounds of the people running it, or learn about the admission process. You can also download a copy of the student application.

- Dan Fink