Baltimore County residents will gain a new language-immersion charter school in September 2025, becoming only the second charter option in the district — and the first to open since 2019.
On Tuesday night, county school board members unanimously voted to approve the application for Bilingual Global Citizen Public Charter School. The school will offer instruction half in English and half in French or Chinese starting with kindergarten through third grade, and adding a grade each year until they enroll eighth graders.
Board members also rejected an application from Puzzle Pieces Learning Academy. District officials said in a March board meeting that the school’s leaders failed to provide adequate details about curriculum, staffing and student support on their initial application.
“We have one chance to get it right for our students,” said board chair Tiara Booker-Dwyer. “And so when we look at these charter applications, we are looking at are you taking advantage of that one chance to get it right?”
Puzzle Pieces CEO and Founder Chizarra Dashiell told board members that the application process lacked clarity upfront.
“How can we correct things if it's not measurable, or if it's not identified for us?” she said. “Some of the inaccuracies were just either not recorded or not even pointed out.”
There are around 50 charter schools operating in Maryland, making it one of the states with the fewest in the nation. Maryland charter schools are required to adhere to local public school standards, and to employ teachers from local unions.
Over 30 of the state’s charters are located in Baltimore City. But only one, Watershed Public Charter School, exists in Baltimore County.
Sage Magness-Hill, president of the board of directors at Watershed, said there are a lot of misconceptions about charter schools statewide.
“If you don't have an understanding of what a charter school is, you might think, ‘Oh, this is a knock against the education that we are providing,’” Magness-Hill said. “But we don't think that Baltimore County is doing a bad job at educating students, that is not the case at all. It's just that not every student can learn in a traditional setting.”
Operating a charter school in Baltimore County comes with its own unique challenges, Magness-Hill said. The application process is especially rigorous, they said. And finding a location is even more difficult.
“The city has a lot of empty properties, and they just sit there,” Magness-Hill said. “But because property in the county is so sought after, if there's an empty building, they're probably going to tear it down and build something else.”
Watershed still rents its property, which leaders converted from an old private Catholic school to meet Baltimore County Public Schools standards. That also means a lot of the school’s budget goes to rent and utilities.
Despite the hurdles, Watershed just renewed a five-year contract with the Baltimore County district this year. The school earned four out of five stars on the state school report card last year. And only 18% of its students are chronically absent, compared to over a third of county students overall.
Magness-Hill said they drive their second graders 45 minutes each day to and from Watershed for a more diverse, individualized learning experience.
The neighborhood school their family was originally zoned for “was 90% white,” they said. “I lost a lot of sleep at night being like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to be okay with this.”
Magness-Hill wanted their children to have an experience with peers who better reflect the overall population of Baltimore County, not just their neighborhood. Over half of the students at Watershed are Black, and nearly 15% are multiracial.
There are also only around 40 students in each grade.
“It’s a small environment, considering that a lot of schools have issues with overcrowding,” Magness-Hill said.
Baltimore County Superintendent Myriam Rogers said in a press conference Tuesday that the approval of Bilingual Global Citizens charter school has nothing to do with overcrowding — and that there’s an opportunity for new schools to apply every year.
Magness-Hill said Watershed leaders know they set the precedent in Baltimore County.
“Anything that we do could make or break, not just Watershed, but the future schools that are hoping to do similar things,” they said.
