For the second time in as many years, the Franklin Career Charter Academy awaits an 11th-hour action by a committee of conference of the state legislature to see whether or not the school will open next year.

As it stands now, the school will receive about $3,800 per student in direct aid. If passed in it original form, H.B. 1642 would have given an additional $1.5 million to seven state sponsored charter schools including Franklin — or an additional $2,700 per student in Franklin.

"If it's $3,800 per child there's no point in going forward," said Head of School Bill Grimm who spent some time in Concord last week urging legislators to support the charter school movement.

Last week, the Sen. Peter Burling, a Cornish Democrat, motioned for House Bill 1642 to be tabled, but his motion was narrowly defeated. The Senate later supported H.B. 1642 with an amendment that would reduce the additional per pupil allocation from $2,700 to $1 — gutting the money portion of the bill but leaving it on life-support for the committee of conference to hammer out at the end of this session.

The Franklin Career Academy has about 30 students and has been hanging on by a thread this year. In March, Gov. John Lynch brokered an early distribution of next year's funding that enabled the school to stay open for the remainder of this school year.

Last year, the Legislature, again at the recommendation of a committee of conference, passed an $800,000 charter school supplement that was distributed between the three state-sponsored schools that had exhausted their federal startup grants: Cocheco Arts and Technical Charter School, Seacoast Charter School, and Franklin Career Academy.

While Grimm said he was pleased with the bipartisan level of support the New Hampshire charter school movement has gotten in the past years, especially at the legislative level, he said he is disappointed at what he perceives as weak support form the State Department of Education.

"Going through this whole process, no one from the DOE was there," Grimm said. referring to last week's legislative session.

"There have been some very talented senators and representatives, especially Sen. Margaret Hassan, D-Exeter, Sen. Martha Fuller-Clark, D-Portsmouth, and Rep. Kenneth Weyler, R-Kingston, who have spent a great deal of time on this," said Grimm adding he thinks many people in the state no longer question the benefit of charter schools for a small subset of New Hampshire's students.

Grimm said the Franklin Career Academy Trustees will be meeting this week.