Harpswell Coastal Academy is clear to open its doors this fall after unanimous approval of its application Tuesday by the Maine Charter School Commission.

The commission voted 7-0 to approve the Harpswell charter school application, Maine Charter School Commission Executive Director Bob Kautz said.

The state and school now will move to negotiate a contract. “In that contract (is) an April 1 deadline for recruitment, and meeting the number of students they need to open as part of that contract,” Kautz said.

“They have to meet (an enrollment) number that is consistent with their budget, and that number would be formalized in the actual charter contract but it wouldn’t vary from what they had proposed,” he said.

By a 6-1 vote Tuesday the commission also approved an application resubmitted by the Fiddlehead School of Arts and Science in Gray to serve students in kindergarten through grade 5. The commission had granted conditional approval to the school Oct. 2, requiring it to submit a revised application with updated information on its assessment system and a revised governance plan.

The commission’s Harpswell school review team said “the school incorporates a vast array of practical life principles woven into its education plan and utilizes the ocean, wetlands and farmlands as a central aspect of the school’s resources. The first-year enrollment for the school will be 60 students in grades 6 and 9. The school in five years will encompass grades 6 through 12 with an anticipated enrollment of 280 in five years.”

School spokesman Joe Grady said Tuesday that 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.

The school had no lease pending Tuesday’s decision; but now a lease agreement can be finalized, he said.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Grady said, “We’re thrilled and really grateful for the support we’ve gotten in the community and from all the people who have been involved with the team so far. And you know, we felt really good from the beginning that Harpswell is a great place for this and that we’ve got really good people involved.”

Of the unanimous vote by commissioners, he said, “I think it says that all those people think we’ve got a strong plan and committed group of professionals behind it.”

The commission held a public hearing on Harpswell Coastal Academy’s application Jan. 18 in Harpswell. “I really think that the turnout that we had at the commission hearing was really critical,” Grady said. “People showed up in droves and were loud and clear about how much they’d love to see this happen.”

From here, Grady said the school will put together a charter contract outlining “what we are going to do and also include the measures by which we will be assessed in the years ahead when it’s time to review our charter and renew our charter.”

Harpswell Coastal Academy will have until April 1 to formally notify the school districts from which the students are intending to enroll, Kautz said. That’s so school districts have time to adjust their budgets, since state funding follows the student. Notification includes the names of students.

The charter contract must be completed at least 60 days before the school is open — and will need another commission vote.

Kautz said he hopes it will be completed by April 1. “The sooner the better,” he said.

Recruitment will involve a series of meetings for parents and students to find out about the school and how to enroll. “We’ll have to get right on that,” Grady said.

Grady expressed gratitude to the Maine Charter School Commission. “These people clearly want to see good schools come out of this process that are good for kids in the state,” he said. “I think we’re lucky as a state that this committee is working on this issue because they’re taking it very seriously.”

Maine Department of Education spokesman David Connerty Marin said Tuesday that “clearly, the (Education) Commissioner and governor have been strong proponents of increasing options for students and their families, and charter schools is one piece of that. So we are very pleased to see the addition of options for students in the state of Maine.”

The two charter schools that garnered approval Tuesday are slated to open in September along with Baxter Academy of Technology and Science in Portland.

Maine’s first charter schools — Good Will-Hinckley’s Maine Academy of Natural Sciences high school and the Cornville Regional Charter School, serving grades K-6 — opened in 2012.

dmoore@timesrecord.com