Charter school overview
Lowell Community Charter Public School
How LCCPS is governed, funded, and changing its campus and academic program.
How does this independent public charter school fund its program?
LCCPS is an independent public charter LEA governed by its own Board of Trustees. Its main revenue is tuition calculated by Massachusetts from the spending and student characteristics of sending districts, supplemented by state and federal grants, nutrition reimbursements, fundraising, and other income.
One board governs one PK-8 school
The Board of Trustees approves the budget, oversees the executive director, and governs an enrollment cap of 815 students.
Tuition is the main revenue
The approved FY27 budget expects $17.25 million in DESE tuition out of $19.55 million in total income.
A major capital project changes the cost structure
A $35.98 million tax-exempt bond finances the Athletic & Community Center and refinances existing debt; budgeted annual debt service rises sharply in FY27.
The school is fully enrolled
The 2025-26 annual report says LCCPS maintained 815 students using its waitlist even after more than 40 families relocated.
The FY25 audit issued an unmodified opinion with no reported findings, and the approved FY27 budget projects a 2.57% operating surplus; the current record does not establish a fiscal crisis.
Where the charter school stands
The report says the school maintained its 815-student enrollment cap.
Includes $18.53 million of operating expense and $520,558 of depreciation and amortization.
Context calculation: $19,049,286 of approved FY27 total expense divided by 815 students. It includes schoolwide operations, facilities, financing, and depreciation, not only classroom spending.
The budget attributes the increase to new bond financing.
Two annual reports, two board-approved budget books, and one independent audit.
Major projects
Athletic & Community Center
Financed; demolition and construction scheduledLCCPS plans a gymnasium and community center after acquiring the rest of Mill No. 5. The current annual report says historic and planning approvals are complete and targets completion in November 2027.
- 2024-25 annual report describes the Mill No. 5 acquisition and an earlier August 2025 groundbreaking target
- Board approves FY27 budget with $983,250 of debt service
- Annual report says historic and planning approvals are complete and groundbreaking is expected in summer 2026
- Projected completion month
Funding
$35.98 million tax-exempt bond offering
The financing also refinances existing school debt; the record does not isolate the construction-only proceeds.
ELA, science, and math curriculum work
New programs being implementedThe school refined Fishtank ELA in grades K-5, completed the first year of OpenSciEd in grades 5-8, and budgeted $85,000 more for instructional supplies including a new math curriculum.
- 2025-26 implementation year begins
- Board approves FY27 instructional-supplies increase
- Annual report documents Fishtank ELA and OpenSciEd implementation
Funding
FY27 instructional-supplies budget
Instructional supplies rise from $165,000 to $250,000; the document does not assign all of that increase to math.
Recent news
Identity was checked against NCES and the school's official governance page. The current official corpus contains the annual-report and financial-report records selected by the same rendered archive discovery used by the weekly collector. All five collected records were reviewed chronologically, with financial tables visually checked where text extraction lost layout.
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