The Milwaukee Board of School Directors on Thursday night voted to approve a proposal for the creation of Milwaukee Excellence Charter School.

The vote means Milwaukee Public Schools can now negotiate to establish a non-instrumentality charter contract for the school, which would open in 2016-17. A location would be determined after the contract is negotiated.

Under the proposal that was approved with an amendment from the Board, Milwaukee Excellence Charter School would ultimately serve students in grades 6-12 beginning with grade 6 in its first year.

The proposal presented to the Board was updated to clarify its alignment with MPS Discipline Policy and information related to school structure and culture. The updated proposal also includes additional information about academic and extracurricular activities the school intends to offer as well as student and teacher recruitment efforts.

Milwaukee Excellence Charter School expands the broad range of K3-12 school offerings available to MPS families, including strong neighborhood schools; arts, bilingual, International Baccalaureate, Montessori and language immersion schools; and charter schools.

In other action, the Board:

• Approved a two-year renewal charter contract for the Alliance School of Milwaukee, which serves students in grades 9-12 and has been an MPS charter school since 2005-06; the school can serve up to 175 students
• Approved new leaders for nine schools
• Approved 30 additional seats for Carmen High School of Science and Technology – South Campus and 35 additional seats for La Causa Charter School for 2015-16 to match the seat increase provided to the schools for 2014-15
• Approved the receipt of more than $105,000 in donations to MPS during July 2015, including more than $40,000 in Kohl’s Cares Field Trip grants