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Parents hoping to start a second Montessori charter school in Frederick County must polish their plans for a dual-language Spanish program and prepare to submit their application by the beginning of June.

Parent advocates received feedback on plans for a new charter school from the Frederick County Board of Education on March 9. Now, priorities include finding a building for the school in downtown Frederick, finalizing a budget and spreading news of the school to the community.

"We were really waiting for the feedback. Now we can really crank it up," said Julie Clark, one of about 20 parents who will apply this summer to open a new charter school in Frederick County by fall 2011.

The Carroll Creek Montessori Charter School would serve 330 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. It plans to model Monocacy Valley Montessori Public Charter School (MVMS), located on Dill Avenue in Frederick, which emphasizes hands-on, self-guided learning for the same grades.

The new school would operate under the umbrella of Monocacy Montessori Communities Inc., the nonprofit group that runs the existing charter school.

The new school hopes to respond to a demand for more spots at MVMS — the only public school in Frederick County using the curriculum developed by Maria Montessori in the early 1900s.

This year, the school received 854 applications for 25 available spots, said Barb LaPilusa, a parent who is responsible for conducting a lottery on Wednesday that determines which students will attend the school.

All 25 spots are in the pre-school and kindergarten program, LaPilusa said. Other grades may have openings later in the year, which are typically filled from a waiting list based on results from the lottery, LaPilusa said.

Advocates for the Carroll Creek Charter School believe they could attract students and families who have failed to get into MVMS via the lottery and waiting list system.

The new school would also have some unique features. Ideally, organizers hope to find a building with plenty of outdoor space, which is one aspect emphasized in the Montessori educational approach, said Jennifer Peifer, one of the parents working on the application for the school.

If approved, the school would have a Spanish track program, with one class of students receiving most instruction in Spanish and another two classes where instruction is mostly in English.

In their first year at the school, students in the Spanish track would receive 90 percent of instruction in Spanish. In first, second and third grade, 80 percent of student instruction would be in Spanish, and for the higher grades, 75 percent of instruction would be in Spanish. Ideally, students in the Spanish track would be able to work with a certified Montessori teacher who is also a native Spanish speaker.

Danielle Wilfong, a Frederick parent who is working on the language program, said she is exploring a few models and recently started talking with specialists at language immersion programs in Montgomery County and at Latin American Montessori Bilingual Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

The main model for the program, however, is at Casa Esperanza — a Montessori charter school in North Carolina that offers a Spanish enrichment program as well as a partial Spanish immersion program, said Wilfong, who visited the school this year.

Initially, parents were hoping to have an immersion program in which 50 percent of students are native Spanish speakers, but Maryland law mandates that charter school enrollment be determined by a lottery, Wilfong said.

The plan for parents now is to partner with the Frederick Alliance for Youth — Frederick agencies that work together to improve services in Hillcrest and Waverley, two communities that have a high concentration of Hispanic families. Charter school founders hope to use that agency's connections to reach out and attract Spanish-speaking families to the school.

The Frederick County Board of Education must approve or deny the plan for the school within 120 days of receiving the application. Members got a look at concept plans on March 9.

Board members asked questions related to school governance, its facility, language program and its relationship with the Monocacy Montessori Communities Inc.

Some board members noted that the nonprofit would have to be careful to ensure that both Montessori schools would get equal representation on the MMCI board and don't compete for grants, funding and resources.

Board member Michael Schaden said he was concerned about the high number of students in classes at the new school – up to 30 students in some, according to the concept proposal.

Peifer told him that the school would have one teacher for every 15 students as well as a floating teaching position to help with younger students. Having large classes with students in mixed ages is one of the cornerstones of the Montessori philosophy, which encourages students to learn through helping and tutoring younger students.

Schaden also said that merging the new school with the existing charter school may be more cost-effective. The two schools could share one building, one principal and other resources, he said.

Board member Daryl Boffman had a concern with the school's dual language program and its ability to attract minority and Spanish-speaking students. Boffman said that without a single native-Spanish speaker as a founding parent, he did not see how the group could create connections with the Hispanic and Spanish-speaking community.

Wilfong said she was generally encouraged by the board's response and hopes that the board will give a green light for the school later in the year.

"This is a learning experience, but I think it is going really well," she said.

E-mail Margarita Raycheva at mraycheva@gazette.net.