AUGUSTA

Harpswell Coastal Academy is clear to open its doors in Harpswell next fall following unanimous approval of its application today by the Maine Charter School Commission.

The commission voted 7-0 to approve the Harpswell charter school application and voted 6-1 to approve the application resubmitted by the grades K-5 Fiddlehead School of Arts and Science in Gray on Jan. 17 following conditional approval by the commission. 

Harpswell Coastal Academy plans to enroll students in grades 6 to 12, but would open initially with 40 to 80 students only in grades 6 and 9 and add grades later.

The charter school would offer a “place-based” curriculum emphasizing experiential learning.

School spokesman Joe Grady said today Harpswell Coastal Academy has a letter of intent to locate the school for its first year at the Merriconeag Grange on Harpswell Neck Road, Route 123. A lease has not yet been worked out, Grady said.

The Maine School Management Association, which represents school boards at Maine public schools, said in a news release, that commissioners “said Harpswell Academy, which focuses on project-based learning that takes advantage of its coastal location, will give students life-sustaining skills, including growing their own food.”

Maine Charter School Commissioner William Shuttleworth voted in opposition to the Fiddlehead School of Arts and Science application because he believes it is duplicating services offered by Regional School Unit 15 in Gray.

The two charter schools that garnered approved today are slated to open in September along with Baxter Academy of Technology and Science in Portland. Good Will-Hinkley’s Maine Academy of Natural Sciences high school and the Cornville Regional Charter School serving grades K-6 opened in 2012.