Dive Brief:

• Rhode Island will consider a request by five charter schools to add over 900 seats in a Monday Council on Elementary and Secondary Education work session.
• Rhode Island has 25 charter schools with around 7,000 students, and the new expansion requests are already backed by the state's education commissioner, Deborah A. Gist.
• Rhode Island League of Charter Schools Executive Director Stephen Nardelli says that 1,000 charter openings in the state in 2014 received 13,000 applications, according to the Providence Journal.

Dive Insight:

Among the expanstion requests: a 174-student companion middle school for Woonsocket's Beacon Charter School for the Arts, 133 new seats for students grades 7-12 and pre-K at Providence's Highlander Charter School, 306 additional K-8 seats at Pawtucket's International Charter School, 260 more seats for K-8 students at South Kingstown's Kingston Hill Academy, and 80 new seats at Providence's Times2 Academy.

The Providence Journal reports the state's total number of students around 140,000, so the number attending charter schools is still relatively low.