Staten Island is getting a school of choice to bolster District 31 middle-school options when the Marsh Avenue School for Expeditionary Learning opens in the fall of 2008. The school's founding principal, Jessica Milona, said she received more than1,000 applicants for some 147 seats in the 2008-09 school year. Marsh Avenue will serve 6th grade students in its first year, adding a grade each for the following two years. The school will share a new complex with the McCown Expeditionary Learning School and a District 75 school for disabled students.