Buffalo's Academy of Science Charter School says it's doing well enough academically that it wants to add fifth and sixth grade and 120 students.
The school has 400 students in seventh through 12th grades right now. The request has gone to the school board and to Albany. School Director Muchait Polat says a key issue is ending city school's chronic turnover of students.
"The longer that students stay with us, the better that they're doing. That's for sure with the data," Polat explained.
"The students are starting with 40 percent proficiency rate in algebra in ninth grade, but they are ending up in 85 percent to 90 percent average in algebra when they are graduating."
That's in a school that is overwhelmingly poor and minority, with an increasing number of immigrants with poor English proficiency. Polat says one way Science wants to deal with that is by issuing each student a personal laptop computer.
