Parents have also been receptive to the diversity of faculty, part of the school's plan to provide minority students with role models.

"Role models for African-American children are not in Cambridge public schools, but we have quite a few people of color on staff," Graham says, adding that this makes the school more attractive to professional minority families.

"The school is working to raise our daughter's self-esteem and her social and cultural awareness," Hall says. "They have an outstanding number of educators in the school. There are parents who serve as role models. Together we make it a focal point of our community."

First-Year Challenges

But the first year in operation has not been without its problems.

Nesson says "philosophical differences" on the board of trustees led to the recent resignation of five members.

"The board was split over the style of management and the relationship that should exist between the board and the executive director," he explains.

Nesson says he has high hopes for the new chair of the board, Mildred Blackman, a former Cambridge public school teacher and principal who is also working at Harvard's Principal Center.

"She understands from a principal's perspective how the board should relate to the principal and the day-to-day running of the school," Nesson says.

And like any fledgling institution, Graham says, the Banneker school needs additional funds.

Publicly funded, the school currently receives $7,293 per student, the equivalent that would have been spent on students in their neighborhood public schools.

Banneker also received an anonymous donation of $100,000 in the beginning of the year.

"There's never enough money to do the things we want to do, but we can still operate," Graham says. "Like every new venture, everything we've had to do, we've had to create. The challenge has been creating school while running school."

Graham says she would like to see the school move into a larger building. Currently, the school rents space from Our Lady of Pity Catholic Church.

She is also anxious to enroll more students next year when the school hopes to add a sixth grade to its current kindergarten through fifth grade program.

Eventually, Graham hopes to meet the charter's original goal of teaching seventh and eight grades as well.

Parents say they are optimistic about Banneker's future.

"I see the school becoming well-rooted in the Cambridge community and becoming a reflection of the community which is ethnically and philosophically diverse," Jackman says. "I see the Banneker school reflecting the richness of Cambridge.