Approval by the N.C. Charter School Advisory Board puts a proposed all-girls public charter school in New Hanover County one step closer to reality, organizers announced Friday in a news release.

The unanimous action by the governing body “puts The Leadership Academy for Young Women (LAYW) on track to open for the 2016/17 school year,” the release stated, noting that the N.C. Board of Education must still approve the school and grant it a charter before it can begin operations.

Envisioned more than a year ago by retired television executive and local resident Judy Girard, along with Georgia Miller, wife of then-chancellor of University of North Carolina Wilmington Gary Miller, the LAYW plans to target girls from  low-income backgrounds who will be the first in their families to attend college, according to the release. The school, which will be the first single-gender public school in New Hanover County, will offer a “rigorous STEM-based curriculum, with college preparatory, healthy life skills and leadership classes enhancing the learning environment, both in and out of school,” the release stated.

School organizers have partnered with UNCW’s Marine Quest and art department, DREAMS of Wilmington and Cape Fear Community College to develop that curriculum, the release stated.

The proposed school will be an affiliate of the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), which now has five high-performing schools, called The Young Women’s Leadership Schools, in New York City. The network  has grown to encompass 11 affiliates in five states, all following the original model of a single-sex, academically challenging school that takes a holistic educational approach to lifting girls out of poverty.

Girard, who is co-chair and founder of Young Women Leading, the proposed school’s supporting foundation, welcomed news of the board’s approval.

“This unanimous vote from the Charter School Advisory Board was a great vote of confidence in our ability to deliver on our mission,” she said in the release.  “With the state’s support and the support of our YWLN affiliate network, we look forward to changing lives and breaking the cycle of poverty through education here in Wilmington.”

Girard’s co-chair is Robert E. Tyndall, former vice chancellor and associate provost at UNCW, and former dean of the university’s Watson School of Education.  Tyndall supervised the charter’s written application and its academic design. 

Plans are for the school to open with 75 sixth-grade girls in 2016, adding a similar-sized class each year, thereby reaching full enrollment and its first graduating class by 2022, according to the release. Organizers are already cultivating the initial class through LAYW’s Summer Leadership Academy and quarterly Angela Uhl Wagner Learning Circle programs. About 20 girls have participated in these programs and would be considered for the inaugural class, the release stated.