COURTESY PHOTO | Jerry and Fern Hill at the ranch named in honor of their son.

The Timothy Hill Children’s Ranch on Middle Road in Riverhead has filed an application with the state to open a charter school on its property. It would be called the Timothy Hill Community Charter School, and is proposed to have grades 7 through 12, according to the organization’s application.

The application anticipates an enrollment of just 55 students in its first expeted year of operation in the 2013-14 school year, with that number jumping to 210 in the 2018-19 school year.

“The mission of the Timothy Hill Community Charter School is to ensure that our students have the opportunity for further success in the college of thier choice and/or a viable career,” the application states. It reads that the proposed school would be a “no excuses” schools that will embrace rigorous academics, an intentional self-management focus, data-driven decision making, therapeutic and supportive school culture and “authentic, real world vocational integration.”

Timothy Hill Children’s Ranch was started 30 years ago on a 70-acre ranch. It is licensed by the state and houses boys who are troubled, abused or neglected or come from troubled families, it’s executive director, Thaddaeus “Thud” Hill said in 2010. Most of them stay at the ranch for about a year to 18 months, though some have stayed as long as six years, Mr. Hill said.

Thud Hill is the brother of Timothy Hill, who died in a bicycle accident in 1972 at the age of 13, before he could fulfil his dream of having a ranch where troubled youth could live.

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