SLIDESHOW: McAuliffe Charter Starts School Year Wednesday

The Christa McAuliffe Charter School held a supply drop-off day Tuesday morning for its middle school students from Framingham and several other MetroWest communities.

Last year’s school opening did not go as planned as the new building and campus, was delayed from its originally planned August opening to a January 2015 opening.

This year, will be the first school year completely in the new building from start to finish.

Students will start class today, Wednesday Aug. 26.

Besides new students, there will also be a new director of student culture.

Brian Prehna started in August to replace Kim Ferguson who left the regional public charter school after 2 years. Ferguson was hired in 2013, to replace the former principal post.

Prehna comes from the Wediko School in New Hampshire, where he provided guidance to severely emotional disturbed boys ages 8-20. He implemented crisis prevention, behavioral management and therapeutic intervention programs in his previous positions.

Just like the Framingham Public School district, which has seen multiple personnel changes in the last three years, so has the regional public charter school seen personnel changes since 2013.

Mara Gorden was hired as the director of community development in March 2015.

Alex Sudan, who oversaw the school’s IT and data management, left in April 2015.

Tim Scott was hired in the spring of 2014 as the director special education.

Elizabeth Kumpulanian was hired as special education chair in 2013.

Matt Ehrenworth was hired as Director of Business and Operations in 2013.

In June of 2013, the school hired Alison Rheingold and Christina Morello as instructional coaches.

Rheingold has since moved into the position of Director of Professional Learning, and Nellie Zupancic, began as the ELA/humanities.world language coach in July 2014.

And this week, the lone-person in the guidance department Sarah Shapiro announced she was leaving for a position at a public school district.

The school also will have a less stringent food allergy policy this school year.

In 2014-15, McAuliffe was a ”peanut-free and tree nut-free school.” Students were not allowed to bring lunch or snack foods with nut or nut butters.

But over the summer, the school’s board of directors voted to change the policy.

“No known life threatening allergens will be allowed in classrooms (e.g. no nuts in snacks that are eaten in classrooms) and there will be a section of the cafe where life threatening allergens (e.g. peanut butter) may be consumed,” explained Executive Director Kristin Harrison, who has been with the school since 2008.

Tuesday, scores of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students dropped off their supplies in their crew room.

Students discovered who was in their crew and were excited to see friends and start the new school year.

The school’s PTG (parent teacher group) arranged for custom McAuliffe sweatshirts and pants to be imprinted on the spot in the cafeteria and a Kona shaved ice truck was parked outside the school for a nice treat after all the supplies were nestled into the classrooms.

More than a decade old, the Christa McAullife Charter School, is ranked as a level 2 school by the Commonwealth, and has more than 400 students in grades 6-7-8. Last year 1 in every five students was listed as special education, which is slightly about the state average of 17 percent.

The school’s mission is mission is “to cultivate within each member of a diverse student body, through the Expeditionary Learning design, an intense commitment to self and community, the courage and insight to set high standards for academic and personal success, and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to achieve those standards.”