Page 4 - BusinessWest September 19, 2022

4 SEPTEMBER 19, 2022 FEATURE BusinessWest
School of Thought
Veritas Charter Prep Raises the Bar with New High School
RBy George O’Brien
achel Romano says she started Veritas Prep Charter School after becoming frustrated as a middle-school teacher in Springfield with just how ill-prepared students were to suc- ceed — at the next level in their education, and in general.
She called it “unfinished learning,” and it was occurring at many levels, especially with reading.
“They really hadn’t made that shift from learning how to read to reading to learn, which should happen around third
or fourth grade,” she explained. “But if it hasn’t happened and they come into the middle school, most middle schools are not designed to keep teaching that, so students really fall behind. When your foundation is weak, there is nothing to build on.”
It was with a desire to provide middle-school students with a better, stronger foundation so they would not fall behind
that Romano started Veritas Prep Charter School, opening the doors in a former nursing home on Pine Street nearly a decade ago. And almost from the day it opened, parents and students alike were asking, ‘when are we going to start a high school?’
It took several years, considerable planning, the transfor- mation of what was manufacturing space on Carando Drive, and many other pieces to fall into place, but that high school opened its doors late last month.
As Romano, an educator but also a true entrepreneur (and BusinessWest 40 Under Forty honoree in 2013), put it, in some ways, the new Veritas facility is high school reimagined. This is a career-focused, early-college model designed, like the middle school, to enable students to succeed at the next level — what- ever that might be.
For many, it will be college, she said, but higher education is not the goal of every child.
“But every kid should have the choice,” she said. “And if they’re prepared for college ... then they have options open to
Rachel Romano, founder and executive director of Veritas Preparatory Charter School, shows off one of the classrooms in the recently opened high school.