School’s in session — ’round-the-clock.
A new charter school in the South Bronx will be open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, all year — an apparent first for the state and possibly the country.
The K-5 school “Strive,” which is set to welcome its first students in the fall, will fulfill a crucial need for struggling working parents, backers said.
“We are trying to address a critical part of affordability for parents, which is childcare,’’ Strive founder Eric Grannis told The Post.
“Schools educate children, but they also enable parents to work — but they do a very bad job of it.’’
Strive will provide mandatory instruction from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with optional hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Its instructional program — modeled after the academics at Success Academy — will operate for 200 days, with enrichment, intervention and extracurricular activities available for students during non-class time. There will also with extended-learning opportunities on weekends and in the summer.
In another relief for parents, Strive — which will mainly be taxpayer-funded through the government — will serve free breakfast, lunch and dinner every day it’s open.
“We are a one-stop shop,” said Grannis, the husband of Success Academy Charter network CEO Eva Moskowitz. “We’re open 50 weeks per year, seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.”
The school will operate on an $8 million budget its first year, handling 325 students. It raised $825,000 in private donations to help cover its start-up costs.
The new charter — which will eventually educate 544 students — was able to open because it landed one of the state’s coveted limited operating licenses from Moskowitz’s organization.
Success Academy transferred its license from its Success Academy 5 Lower Elementary in The Bronx to Strive at 604 E. 139th St.
Grannis said Strive will help lefty Mayor Zohran Mamdani address one of his key campaign promises: childcare affordability.
The Brooklyn Charter School, located in the heart of Bed-Stuy, is already open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. but only Monday through Friday and not during the summer.
Extended-day schools have been talked about for decades. The late Mayor David Dinkins provided “Beacon Schools” funding to encourage extended time at schools, considering them safe havens for kids.
Grannis noted that most schools are closed for the summer.
“It makes no sense. People’s jobs don’t close for the summer. And school lets out at about 3:30. Few jobs end by 3:30,” he said.
Strive said one of its key components is flexibility.
On regular school days, parents will have a two-hour window to drop off their kids — 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. — and a two-and-a-half hour window to pick up their children — 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The school’s staffing plan provides for lead teachers to work on a consistent 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule, with teaching assistants and other staffers put on staggered schedules to oversee the optional extended hours.
Strive will recruit current college students pursuing teaching degrees to provide in-person teaching experience and training, allowing it to offer its extended hours in a cost-effective manner, according to the plan it submitted to its state regulator, the SUNY Charter School Institute.
Charter schools are privately managed, publicly funded alternative schools that typically operate with a long school day and often outperform neighboring traditional public or district schools on state English and math exams.
Students at the 59-school Success Academy charter network are among the highest performers in the city and state.
Many of the charter schools have staffers who don’t belong to unions, unlike traditional public schools.
“Strive is a good program. It exactly addresses the issue that is front and center — affordability,” said Joseph Belluck, chairman of SUNY’s charter-school committee.
“This is what charter schools should be doing. It’s important to see if this kind of offering makes a difference. If it works, it’s something other schools can consider adopting.”
The proposed extended day and year school is not without controversy.
The state Education Department and Board of Regents, more closely aligned with the anti-charter school teachers’ union, objected to the extended-time-and-day charter school because they claimed its license exceeds the cap in state law on charter schools that can open in New York City.
But Belluck said SUNY’s approval is legal because it’s a transfer or revision of an existing charter school license, not creation of a new one. Under the law, SUNY has the final say on charter school applications directed to them.