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Parents and educators at Monocacy Valley Montessori Charter School in Frederick are waiting for the school board to decide whether to renew or terminate their charter, which expires in June.

Officials and parents at the school submitted their renewal request to the Frederick County Board of Education on Sept. 1, said Kim Standing, president of Monocacy Montessori Communities, the group that runs the charter school.

If the board does not approve the request, the school cannot open for students next September.

"I don't know the minds of board members," Standing said. "But so far, what I am hearing from the school system is positive."

The Montessori school is the only charter school in Frederick County. The school receives public funding and operates on a four-year charter from Frederick County Public Schools, which requires it to meet certain performance goals.

For example, the charter school has to maintain test scores that are the same or higher than the county's average in math and reading, regardless of state standards.

The school has had some trouble meeting that requirement in math, and in 2007 revamped its program to ensure better test performance. As a result, math scores at the school have gone up, and Standing does not expect test performance to hold up the school's charter renewal.

"There were just some things in our program that were not aligned with the Maryland State Curriculum," Standing said.

Monocacy Valley has been open since 2002, but did not have its charter reviewed formally in 2006, said Michele Krantz, the school system's charter school liaison.

The school board in 2006 merely extended the charter for four years so it could sign a lease for its current building on Dill Avenue in Frederick, she said.

Krantz said she expects the school board to make a decision on the charter renewal at its Dec. 9 meeting.

As part of the charter renewal process, school officials will evaluate the school by criteria, such as fiscal responsibility and test performance, Standing said.

She said she hopes the board would consider the high demand for spots at the school when board members discuss the charter renewal. In the current year alone, the school had 20 spots available for new students and received 400 applications, Standing said.

Such demand has led two other parent groups to work independently in the last few months on proposals for two more charter schools, which are publicly funded and privately run.

Though both groups want to focus on teaching Spanish, their ideas are different.

One group hopes to open a school using the alternative, hands-on Montessori curriculum, while the other envisions a school that offers a traditional approach to reading, teaches history chronologically, and unlike public schools, does not use TERC math, a disputed curriculum.

Organizers from each group plan to submit plans for approval from the Frederick County Board of Education in 2010. If the proposals are approved, the schools could open in the fall of 2011.

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