Q: What is a charter school?
A: Charter schools are independently operated public schools. There is no charge to parents because funding comes from state and local taxes. Charter schools must meet the same academic requirements as traditional public schools but are also directly accountable to parents.

Q: How long is the school day?

A: Class begins at 8:00am and ends at 3:00pm. Before Care services are provided for a fee, beginning at 6:30am. After Care services are provided for a fee, ending at 6:00pm.

Q: What is the student-to-teacher ratio?

A: For our Prekindergarten 3, Prekindergarten 4, and Kindergarten classes, the student-to-teacher ratio is 25:2. For grades 1 through 5, the student-to-teacher ratio is 21:1.

Q: What is single-sex instruction and why is it a valued feature of Imagine Southeast PCS?

A: At Imagine Southeast PCS, students will be grouped by sex starting in first grade, creating a Dual-Academy, single-sex instructional environment that separates students into a Boys’ Academy and Girls’ Academy. This educational approach allows teachers to tailor their classes to spark a love of learning in ways that co-ed educational settings cannot. By eliminating social distractions that hinder academic performance and good behavior, adapting instruction to best motivate and teach boys and girls, and opening up typically “non-traditional” subjects and activities for boys and girls to pursue, both genders will benefit greatly from a more tailored approach.

The founders of Imagine Southeast PCS chose this instructional approach in an attempt to address some of the more specific needs of boys and girls that are often overlooked within today’s schools. An increasing body of evidence points to the distinct ways that boys’ and girls’ brains develop and are structured, and how these differences affect how successfully children learn in an educational setting. The brain research of psychologist and family physician Leonard Sax, among others, reveals that traditional co-ed schools fail to account for the real learning differences of boys and girls, regardless of socioeconomic, racial, or family background. Briefly summarized, boys and girls often have different motivators to learn (girls’ concern to please others vs. boys need for the material itself to be inherently interesting), as well as different learning styles (girls tend to need material that ties to real life while boys tend to be more responsive to confrontation and direct challenges). Treating boys and girls exactly the same, as is the case in most traditional co-ed schools, does an educational disservice to both groups in the long run, leading to learning gaps and lower academic performance across the board.

In addition to focusing on single-sex instruction, another motivation for the Dual-Academy structure is also to intentionally promote a sense of “balance” in each Academy to avoid an all-male or all-female mindset. It is important for both boys and girls to learn to positively relate with each other, hence the need for a mixed faculty in both Academies (to promote both male and female role models), and the creation of specific activities to give the boys and girls a chance to constructively interact.