Montgomery County’s only charter school is “in the throes of very arduous prep” for a fall opening, after a series of challenges are forcing MECCA Business Learning Institute (MBLI) to start the 2025-2026 school year in a temporary space, according to MBLI President and Chief Executive Officer LaChaundra Graham.
“The community interest is there, and we’re excited to be able to still be able to move forward,” Graham said. “We’re not going to give up. We see a real need to support our community, so that’s why we’re still here.”
The charter school, which operates under the supervision of the Montgomery County school board with more autonomy than traditional schools and is planning to eventually be located in Germantown, has been facing problems with logistics and county permitting processes because the school district doesn’t have a framework to establish a charter school, according to MBLI officials.
The Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the local teachers union, has also raised concerns about whether the charter school will honor terms regarding teachers’ work schedules that are included in the union’s contract with the school board and whether its temporary site will be suitable for use as a school.
The creation of the charter school
According to the Maryland State Department of Education, charter schools are public schools operated by independent organizations that are tuition-free and open to all students. Local school boards can award the organization a charter agreement, which grants the school more operational autonomy than traditional public schools. Charter schools are authorized under state law, in an effort to “provide innovative learning opportunities and creative educational approaches to improve the education of students,” according to Maryland law.
The MECCA Business Learning Institute is a charter school created by the Mentoring by Example Foundation’s College and Career Academies (MECCA), an education organization “dedicated to reshaping public education through innovation, mentorship, and real-world learning opportunities,” according to its website. MLBI’s leadership includes Tracey Cooper, who serves as vice president and chief academic officer.
Graham told Bethesda Today on April 2 that the school is a business career academy focused on middle schoolers. The school plans to start its first year teaching sixth and seventh graders, then expand to sixth through 12th grades by the 2030-2031 school year.
“Career academies currently, or by design, are for high school students,” Graham said. “And so we are redesigning and reimagining the career academy to introduce it at the middle school level, so students at MBLI will get to learn about the tenants of business, and then not just from a corporate or a business perspective, but how they can apply to the individual lives.”
Graham, who previously worked in school operations, budget and finance, said that after working with students in churches and community organizations, she saw a need to engage students in real-world education before high school.
The establishment of the school has officially been in the works since 2021 when MECCA applied to the county school board to open the business charter school.
The school board declined the charter school’s application in 2022, a decision MECCA appealed to the Maryland State Board of Education. In a 2023 decision, the state education board found that MCPS didn’t provide “reasonable, articulated basis” to deny the application, and directed the school district to approve the application for the school, according to school board documents.
After MCPS and MECCA established a contract in November 2023 for the charter school, the education group provided a series of documents on budgets and facility planning over the following months. The school board voted on Sept. 26 to approve MECCA to operate the charter school beginning in the 2025-2026 school year.
According to the state department of education, there are seven counties in Maryland that have charter schools, including Prince George’s, Anne Arundel and Frederick counties. Montgomery County approved a Montessori-based elementary school in Kensington in 2011, but it struggled with funding and transitioned to a private school after one year as a charter school.
Student interest, funding plans
According to the MBLI website, the school’s academic program intends to have core subjects that integrate “real-world business application,” increased instructional time in literacy and math and project-based learning.
So far, the school has 280 students enrolled to start in the fall for sixth and seventh grade, Graham said.
“We opened our application portal last fall. We had nearly 600 applications for approximately 250 planned seats,” Graham said. “So, the interest continues. We still have nearly 200 kids sitting on our sixth grade wait list.”
The school is also looking to hire about 40 staff members for the entire school and is currently reviewing applications. Graham said the school also has seen interest in the staff positions. MBLI is dependent on MCPS posting its positions, since staff members are ultimately MCPS employees.
MCPS spokesperson Liliana López said the district is assisting with recruiting efforts, and positions were posted April 10.
For a Mandarin teaching position alone, Graham said the school has received as many as 30 applications. When Bethesda Today asked López about the number of applicants, she said the district doesn’t extract the number of applicants by school, only districtwide.
“There are several candidates in each of the positions,” Graham said.
Since charter schools are public schools, they’re funded on a per pupil basis like other public schools, but don’t receive separate funding for capital projects or facilities. Graham said the school will largely be paying for operation and facilities costs with per pupil funding. The charter school also received a $900,000 five-year start up grant from the Maryland State Department of Education.
According to documents presented to the school board in September, the school is projecting to spend about $6 million in the 2025-2026 school year, with $3.44 million paying for projected personnel expenses and $1.87 million for facility expenses. The school is estimating it will receive the majority of its funding — $5.61 million – in MCPS per pupil allocations but is also planning to receive roughly $110,000 from student payment for meals, $251,000 in meal reimbursements and $177,700 from the start-up grant. The school is projected to have about $32,000 left over for the school year.
The Germantown facility is projected to cost around $18 million, and the school is planning to pay for it with increasing payments until 2049, according to school board documents.
While the school will pursue other sources of funding, Graham said the goal is to not be reliant on external funding because that type of funding from donations or corporate fundraising can always change.
“We try to make sure that what we are using is largely based on what we get from the district in terms of the per pupil [funding],” Graham said.
Challenge after challenge
The main challenge the charter school is facing, Graham said, is ensuring it has a home for the fall.
Ultimately, MBLI plans to have a permanent home at 20261 Goldenrod Lane in Germantown, a former office building near the Montgomery College campus. However, “permitting concerns” and developer delays have made it so the building won’t be ready for use for the fall opening, Graham said.
Since MBLI hopes to operate out of a non-traditional space and because there aren’t any other charter schools in the county, Graham said school officials have had to provide “awareness and technical support” throughout the county permitting process.
With a planned fall opening and their permanent site not ready for use, Graham said the school is working with MCPS to find a temporary home. López said the district is providing support and one of the options being explored is using the Radnor School building in Bethesda, which has been used as a holding school in previous years. MCPS is planning to meet with MBLI on Friday to discuss a potential agreement, López said.
But Graham also said since the district doesn’t have other charter schools, it didn’t “plan for our coming from a process and procedure base” and MBLI leadership had to navigate finding the right person to talk to when issues come up.
One of the challenges has been with the contract that the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), the local teachers union, has with the school board. In Maryland, charter schools are beholden to the collective bargaining agreement established between the local teachers union and the district. School districts can ask the union to negotiate amendments to the agreement, but so far, MCPS hasn’t done so, MCEA President David Stein said.
Graham said it isn’t for lack of trying.
“It’s just we could not get consensus on who [in the district] was supposed to lead the effort,” Graham said. “Everything has been really pleasant in terms of the union interactions. It’s just from a timing perspective, because the district did not necessarily time our onboarding, we were outside of the window for collective bargaining agreement adjustments.”
López referred questions about collective bargaining agreements to Stein.
Stein said union officials have met with MBLI, but MCPS hasn’t asked to discuss amendments to their agreement. And, Stein said, the union still has concerns about whether the charter school’s plans are in accordance with the contract for issues such as planning time, scheduling and programs that would provide an extended school day. Stein said MCEA is also concerned if the building will be suitable for students.
“I think there are a lot of question marks that really need to be answered if they really are going to open in the fall, they need to explain this to teachers and other staff, not to mention students and families,” Stein said.
It’s incumbent on MCPS to ensure that the charter school follows the collective bargaining agreement, Stein said.
Regardless of the challenges, Graham said the charter school is still planning to open in the fall.
“The kids [are] the reason why we got into this in the first place,” Graham said. “That’s the reason we’re still looking forward and remaining hopeful about getting all the pieces buttoned up and open for them, because it’s really about preparing them for the future.”
