Proposed downtown Grand Rapids middle school on track

A middle school planned for Grand Rapids Center City may not open this year in its ideal location, but school proponents say it will open, even if in temporary quarters. Based on a Detroit school that claims a 95 percent graduation rate, the school, if successful, will break more than just geographic ground.

According to excerpts from the story:

GRAND RAPIDS — Nancy Husted likes the Grand Rapids Public Schools’ planned University Prep Academy — she just hopes the district can get the program up and running by fall, as promised.

Husted, mother of a sixth-grader at Zoo Environmental Education School, was among the parents attending two Monday open houses, during which district administrators and academy leaders showed off the first of Superintendent Bernard Taylor’s planned public-private partnerships.

Thursday is the deadline for parents to apply for the 130 slots available for sixth- and seventh-graders for the academy’s first year. Administrators expect demand to force a lottery to determine who gets in.

Read the complete story here.