They are facing the challenges of a start-up school. With just a building and two lead teachers (its version of a principal, I believe) in place, how do you get parents interested and committed?
They are taking an interesting approach, attempting to start next year with K1, K2, Grade 1, Grade 2, and two Grade 6 classes.
Why two Grade 6 classes? My hunch is that the BTU knows that there is big overhang of kids that 1) have gone through a K-5 BPS school, 2) are trying to get into an exam school (which start at Grade 7), and 3) have parents who don’t want their kid in a BPS middle school (gosh. why?).
Thus, there’s bulge in demand for Grade 6 that the BTU school is trying to fill.
It’s an interesting experiment for a number of reasons — can we learn anything from the way the BTU manages a school? Isn’t it an interesting dynamic that competition creates? And: what does it say about the quality of BPS middle schools if the BTU is actively trying to serve the Grade 6 market?
