Officials at Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk will host an information meeting Tuesday about their plans to create a charter school focused on the arts.

The Heartwood Charter School of Visual and Performing Arts would be open to students in grades six through eight who live within a 20-mile radius of Kennebunk.

The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Brick Store Program Center on Dane Street.

A law passed last year allows the Maine Charter School Commission to authorize as many as 10 charter schools over the next 10 years. The commission has already approved plans for the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences in Fairfield, Cornville Regional Charter School and the Baxter Academy of Technology and Science in Portland.

The Heartwood school would be the first dedicated to arts education.

Berri Kramer, president of Heartwood College of Art, said the school is in the early stages of planning and has not yet applied for approval from the Charter School Commission. The goal is to open the charter school by fall 2013, she said.

If approved, the school would offer traditional academic classes in the morning and time in the studio in the afternoon. Students would be able to study studio arts, creative writing and performing arts such as theater and dance.

“This prepares them for a world of seeing differently and creative problem solving,” Kramer said. 

Academic classes would be limited to 18 students, while studio classes would have up to nine students. The school would be located on the college campus, but run as a separate nonprofit organization, Kramer said.