The upper level of Annapolis Mall's former Lord & Taylor, empty since 2018, is about to fill up with lockers, study nooks and teenagers. New Village Academy, a tuition-free public charter high school, plans to welcome its first students on August 25, with a ribbon-cutting celebration scheduled for August 18 inside the mall.
The 50,000-square-foot space looks nothing like a typical high school. As reported by CBS News, the building features open work areas, restaurant-style booths and individual study spaces rather than rows of desks. Principal and Executive Director Romey Pittman told the outlet the school intentionally avoids sealed-off classrooms, opting instead for open spaces designed to encourage collaboration.
New Village Academy is a public school of choice within Anne Arundel County Public Schools, open to students in grades nine through 12 who live anywhere in the county. The school enrolled 180 students for its inaugural 2026-2027 year, according to the Maryland Association of Public Charter Schools, with plans to grow to roughly 270 students by 2030. Leaders intend to keep the school intentionally small even as enrollment expands.
A Motto Built Around Choice
The school's motto, “high school done differently,” reflects a curriculum built around real-world problems in the Annapolis community rather than a standard lecture-and-textbook approach. Pittman said students will investigate flooding in downtown Annapolis as part of science-related, real-world coursework, giving them a direct stake in issues affecting their own city.
Latoya Mitchell, a math and STEM teacher at the school, said students can control their education and pursue how they learn and what interests them. She added that the model gives teachers more opportunities to build relationships with students and families, a dynamic she said is harder to achieve in more traditional school settings.
The school also offers internships and community projects meant to help students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills through hands-on engagement with local issues. School leaders expect the mall location itself, with its proximity to businesses, public transportation and community organizations, to create additional opportunities for internships and outside partnerships.
How the Advisory Model Works
New Village Academy organizes students into 14-member “Crew” cohorts, each led by a single teacher-advisor who stays with the group across all four years of high school, according to background material from the Maryland Association of Public Charter Schools. Those cohorts are supported by “Navigation Teams” made up of parents, community mentors, peer coaches and workplace supervisors. The approach draws on Expeditionary Learning and Big Picture Learning models used elsewhere in the country.
The school's founders received early national validation for that approach. In 2023, New Village Academy was selected for the NewSchools Venture Fund's “Launch 2024 Venture Portfolio,” a program supporting non-traditional public school models aimed at reducing student disengagement, as reported by Chesapeake Family.
A Long Road From Approval to Opening
The path to opening day took three years. Anne Arundel County Public Schools' Board of Education unanimously approved New Village Academy's charter application in August 2023, but the opening slipped from an initial Fall 2024 target to 2026 while the school finalized lease terms and construction plans at the mall, according to Patch.
Part of that scrutiny stemmed from Pittman's family ties. She is the sister of Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman, a connection he publicly addressed in an October 2023 county statement clarifying that he exercised no influence over the school board's independent approval process, according to Anne Arundel County government.
The $11.6 million buildout was financed through a turnkey project involving nonprofit charter developer Civic Builders and the Raza Development Fund, with Whiting-Turner handling construction, according to Eye on Annapolis. The site's former retail history stretches back further still: the upper-level Lord & Taylor had sat vacant since 2018 before crews converted it into the current high school campus.
State Funding and a Rare Milestone for Annapolis
New Village Academy also secured public backing beyond its initial construction budget. In April 2026, the school received a $100,000 Maryland state grant through a Legislative Bond Initiative to help build an onsite Community Café and Meeting Space, one intended to serve students during the day and host community programs during evenings and weekends, the same outlet reported.
The opening carries symbolic weight for Annapolis. New Village Academy is the first public charter school to open within the city since KIPP Academy closed more than 15 years earlier, and it stands as the second public charter high school operating in Anne Arundel County. That milestone arrives amid a broader statewide expansion of charter schools, which grew to roughly 25,000 students across 50 schools by 2026 and has fueled ongoing debate between charter operators and local districts over per-pupil funding under the state's Blueprint funding formula.
For now, the focus in Annapolis is simpler: getting 180 students settled into open work areas and restaurant-style booths where a department store once stood, ahead of a first day of school that gives the mall's long-dark upper level a new purpose.
