A new charter school is opening in Baltimore County in 2026, becoming only the third in the district in operation.
In April, the county school board unanimously approved the application for Puzzle Pieces Learning Academy. It will join the Bilingual Global Citizen Public Charter School, which is set to open this fall as the first charter to do so since 2019.
The process hasn’t been straight-forward for Puzzle Pieces. Last year, school board members rejected the application from founder and CEO Chizarra Dashiell for failing to provide adequate details on curriculum, staffing and student support.
“That was more fuel for me to go forward,” Dashiell told WYPR. “I'm from Baltimore County. I'm actually a product of Baltimore County Public Schools. So I'm so excited that I'm able to give back to my community in this way.”
Dashiell said getting approval for a charter school in Baltimore County requires “courage and tenacity.” The application itself requires about 600 pages of information, she said. So, she spent the past year meeting with the Maryland Alliance of Public Charter Schools and participating in an entrepreneurship program at Morgan State University to strengthen her chances.
“I really had no life, no time,” she joked.
There are around 50 charter schools operating in Maryland, making it one of the states with the fewest in the nation. Over 30 of them are located in Baltimore City.
Watershed Public Charter School is the only option currently open in Baltimore County. In 2024, the school earned its second five-year contract with the district.
Dashiell said Puzzle Pieces will stand out because of its focus on early childhood education and personalized lesson plans.
“Once a student is selected through our lottery, we will develop within quarter one and quarter two these personalized learning plans that really develop around, what are the students interests outside of the academic strengths?” she said.
The plan is to keep class sizes small, Dashiell added. Puzzle Pieces will offer pre-K classes for three-and-four-year-olds its first year, adding a grade each fall after until they serve students through fifth grade.
She’s in the “final stages” of securing a building near Arbutus. The next step will be renovating the space, Dashiell said, to cater to Puzzle Pieces’ specific needs — including a robust in-school health suite and a sensory room.
“I knew that the demographic [of students] that I really wanted to focus in on, they don't sometimes have the resources to pay a $2,000 tuition,” she said. “So I’m looking at, how can we make this accessible?”
