NEWS RELEASE: June 24, 2010

PEORIA, IL ... With Quest Charter Academy's student body in place following its lottery process, the Peoria Charter School Initiative (PCSI) announced that the demographic mix of students at the new school essentially mirrors District 150's student population. That is a significant accomplishment for PCSI, which saw student diversity as one of its primary goals for the school.

PCSI received nearly 700 applications for admission to Quest Charter Academy. Each grade will have three classes, with 25 students in each class. Because the number of applicants exceeded the 75 seats available for each grade level, a public lottery was held last month to ensure random selection of students for enrollment in the school.

The school's demographics break down as follows:

• 70% African American (61% in District 150)
• 25% white (30%)
• 4% Hispanic (6%)
• 1% Asian (2.5%)

"Having a student population that mirrors District 150 was extremely important to us," said Quest Charter Academy Principal Engin Blackstone. "We targeted the City of Peoria as a whole, but we paid significant attention to students and parents in the inner city to make sure they had the information and the opportunity to apply to our school."

Lottery results also show that 23 students who were not previously enrolled in District 150 will be attending Quest Charter Academy demonstrating that the charter school will help bring students and parents back into the District.

PCSI conducted a significant campaign effort to encourage enrollment to Quest. Two separate mailings that included a student application were mailed to every District 150 home that had a child entering the fifth, sixth and seventh grades in 2010-2011. In addition, PCSI held nearly a dozen educational forums throughout the community, with a majority of those occurring in the inner city. Student applications were also printed in Spanish to target the Hispanic population.

During the application period, PCSI kept a close eye on the demographic mix of applicants being submitted to ensure a cross section of students were applying.

"We were very sensitive to the demographics of the applications we received," Blackstone said. "We knew that if we were receiving applications just from a certain area of town, or a specific demographic was not represented, we would need to increase our efforts to reach those students and parents."

The first day of class at Quest Charter Academy is August 24.

About PCSI and Quest Charter Academy
The Peoria Charter School Initiative is a nonprofit organization of business people, community leaders, parents and educators bringing new educational choice to our city. Quest Charter Academy is a Peoria District 150 charter school focused on math, science and technology. Quest is open to all students regardless of academic or financial background. Quest will initially offer grades 5-7, and will add a grade each year ultimately offering grades 5-12. The school will be located at the former Loucks School located at the corner of McClure and University streets.

For More Information
Please contact Jeff McCombs at 309.696.9887 or jmccombs@f-w.com.