Even though all the money questions haven't been sorted out, the Franklin Career Academy will re-open in the fall, founder Bill Grimm said yesterday.

The Academy, the state's first charter school, has been closed for a year due to lack of funding. Grimm said the school, which aims to keep at-risk teens in school, will accept about 30 students from grades 9 through 12. He also announced that Walter Anacki, a former Franklin Middle School principal, will be the school's teaching principal. The school will likely have one additional full-time teacher, Grimm said, plus possible part-time faculty.

This year, the school has been working to ensure access to two sources of funds: state education aid plus $283,000 in unspent money from a federal start-up grant.

The school will get state aid, Grimm said, but it remains unclear whether the school will get the federal dollars. The start-up grant was supposed to be for three years - a term that expired while the school was closed.

Last year, the school's funding battles involved Franklin and other local school districts, which bucked state law and did not pass along money for their students at the school. This year, the legislature changed the law: The state will now send education aid of $3,598 per pupil directly to the charter schools rather than to the districts.

The state withheld the unsent money from its grants to the school districts this year. Last month, the Academy at long last received the 2004-2005 money from the state, a total of about $90,000, Grimm said.

Asked whether the state money is enough to run a school on, Grimm said he is hopeful.

"The real answer is we'll see," he said. "We think so."

(Lauren R. Dorgan can be reached at 224-5301, ext. 306, or by e-mail at ldorgan@cmonitor.com.)

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By LAUREN R. DORGAN

Monitor staff