Independence Charter School West was one of five new charter schools approved last night amid a raucous School Reform Commission meeting.

Under its newly granted charter, the school will open in 2016 to K-4 students and will be located in the 19142 zip code in Southwest Philly. The school “will recruit 50 percent of its students from within zip codes 19143 [which includes Cedar Park and Kingsessing] and 19139 [including Walnut Hill], and 50 percent from other parts of the city,” according to its application filed with the district. Another revision to the application caps the total number of students at 300 in the school’s first year.

Independence, like the other charter operators approved on Wednesday, already runs at least one school in the city. The others approved include schools proposed by Mastery, KIPP, Freire and MaST. 

Independence was the first charter approved as the SRC moved through the list of 39 applications alphabetically. The approval set off vocal protests in an overflow audience and led to the arrest of four protesters, according to the Philadelphia Public School Notebook.

Charter schools currently enroll just under a third of the district’s approximately 204,000 students. This is the first time since 2007 that the school district has issued new charters.

Proposed charter operators whose applications were denied can appeal to the state’s “Charter School Appeal Board.”

– Mike Lyons