Charter school planning new building

Charleston Development Academy long ago outgrew its home in one of the city's oldest housing projects, and it's launching a new fundraising campaign for a building.

School leaders say they've adapted to their tight quarters and made the outdated facility work, but a new building would provide needed room to accommodate existing students and those on its waiting list.

"We're so challenged by space that we have make use of every little space," said Principal Cecelia Rogers while sitting in the school's conference room, which doubles as a classroom when it's not used for meetings.

The downtown charter school serves 211 pre-K through eighth-grade students, and the vast majority are high-poverty and live in the surrounding Gadsden Green Public Housing Community. The school earned a "good" rating last year on its state report card.

Rogers couldn't put a price tag on the new building's cost, but she said plans call for it to be constructed on the nearby Harmon Field. School leaders have been working with the city for more than three years to receive the approval needed to allow the school to be built on a piece of the 13-acre park.

Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said the city owns the park, but it received a donation from the Harmon Foundation years ago that restricted the park's use to a recreation site. City officials have asked the foundation to grant an exception for the school building in exchange for an expanded covenant that would protect more of the existing park, he said. The foundation has accepted the city's proposal in concept but the negotiations haven't been finalized, he said.

"This would be a multistory building, so the footprint would not be a large amount of the park, and we believe, with the city working with Charleston Development Academy, that this would be a wonderful partnership," he said.

The new school wouldn't have a cafeteria or gym because it would use nearby Burke High and the Arthur W. Christopher Community Center for those needs, respectively. A new building would allow the one-class-per-grade school to expand to a three-classes-per-grade school, pushing enrollment up to 450. The school would continue using its existing building as an early childhood education center, Rogers said.

"A part of our success is the smallness of the school," she said.

School leaders hope construction can begin as soon as 18 months from now, but fundraising will be a challenge. Nearly 90 percent of the school's families are low-income.

They're receiving some help from Rick Jerue, president of the Art Institute of Charleston, who agreed to chair the fundraising efforts. The institute also has forged a partnership with the arts-infused charter school, and his faculty and students have helped out by hosting clothing drives and doing class projects with students.

Jerue said he's been impressed with the school's offerings, especially because it gives students opportunities that otherwise wouldn't be available.

"I'm introducing as many people as I possibly can to Charleston Development Academy," he said. "But CDA sells itself."