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Charter-school decision by local district looming on horizon

Third time the charm for Juniper?
Durango School District 9-R board of education clerk Sarah Berggren, left, superintendent Dan Snowberger, center, and board member Nancey Stubbs, right, and the rest of the board held a public hearing on a proposal for a new K-5 charter school, called The Juniper School, on March 10 at the 9-R Administration Building. A meeting to be held Tuesday will determine if the district will approve the school’s application.

A cynic might conclude that dissatisfaction with public education – seen in rote learning, failing students, increasing federal guidelines, incompetent but tenured teachers who can’t be fired, falsified test results, seemingly endless testing and more attention to quick-studies than slow learners and special-needs youngsters – brought about charter schools.

A charter school by definition is public, free, singly focused and, to a certain degree, autonomous. Charter schools in Colorado answer to a chartering authority, which can be a school district or the Colorado Charter School Institute.

Schools in urban regions of the country may be troubled, said Stacy Rader, communications director with the Colorado League of Charter Schools. But she sees the impetus for charter schools in Colorado as the search for the best education possible.

“It’s about choice,” Rader said by telephone. “Parents don’t want to enroll their children by ZIP code. They want the choice of the highest-quality option for their children.” She added that Colorado has 214 charter schools that serve among other populations pregnant teenagers, juvenile delinquents, dual-credit (high school and college) students as well as the gifted and talented.

“They run the gamut,” she said.

Colorado became the third state, in 1993, to open a charter school, she said.

The 1993-98 period was the survival stage for charters, Rader said. In the next 10 years, they established solid footing and since 2008 have made their impact felt.

Twelve charter schools in Colorado are run by for-profit education-management organizations, Rader said. Charter schools themselves, however, must be nonprofit, she said.

Today, Colorado charters serve 101,000 children from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade.

The Colorado League of Charter Schools is an advocacy group that promotes professional development and provides legislative support. The organization represents 95 percent of all charters in Colorado.

As an effort to create a third charter school in Durango takes shape, a look at the process and possible end result might be in order. In general, charter schools:

Organize around a given vision or goal. They must be authorized by the local school district under a contract that spells out what they want to accomplish, how they plan to do it and how they will pay for it. Only if the local school district has had its chartering authority revoked can the organizers turn to the Colorado Charter School Institute.

Provide tuition-free and public education. But charter schools must have their own school board and may strike partnerships with public and private entities for direct financial or in-kind funding.

Receive the same per capita dollar funding from the state as other schools in the district. They also may seek funding from public and private sources and establish their own fundraisers.

Pay 3 to 5 percent of their revenue to the authorizing agency, whether the state organization or a local school district, for services.

Charter schools that fail to get approval from a school board can appeal to the Charter School Institute, which can set aside a local school board decision not to approve a charter.

Durango has two charter schools – Mountain Middle School and Animas High School – each in its fourth year. A potential third charter – The Juniper School – is in the process of forming. Its backers hope to get their application approved Tuesday by the Durango School District 9-R board in order to start negotiating a charter contract.

The instructional foundation at The Juniper School is the century-old Montessori method, which is based on a child’s natural inquisitiveness, the freedom to explore within limits, an environment serving multiple ages and a teacher unobtrusively guiding activities.

“There’s a lot of power in the teacher,” said Tammy Fraley, one of the Juniper organizing forces, who is completing work for a Montessori credential. “They walk side by side with the kid.”

The Juniper School also will require student and parents to agree to a “contract” to accomplish tasks. They are expected to make at least a year’s worth of progress every September to June.

Each class in the new K-5 – one class at each grade level the first year – will have two teachers. The second year, each class will have a single teacher, but a third teacher will be assigned to support every two classes.

Students and their parents will set goals to a great extent. Students will be able to work according to their intellectual, not their chronological, age. A third-grader working with a fifth-grader wouldn’t be a surprise, Fraley said.

At the Tuesday meeting of 9-R board members, Superintendent Dan Snowberger will outline what Juniper organizers must do to get their application approved.

This will be the organizers’ third attempt. All that’s known publicly is that in earlier iterations, their budgeting “didn’t meet expectations,” as the spokesman for a review panel put it. As a result, organizers delayed a planned 2015 opening for a year.

Once the application is approved, the group can negotiate a charter contract.

Snowberger is a staunch supporter of charters as alternatives to traditional schools because of their complementary role.

“As a result of charters, 9-R looks at innovation,” Snowberger said. “We may not be meeting all student needs.”

Durango School District 9-R intends to provide space free of charge to The Juniper School above Big Picture High School in the building adjacent to the district offices. The district also will share voter-approved mill levies that produce $5.4 million annually.

Finances tend to be the highest hurdle for charter schools, Rader said. So the warm embrace by 9-R is an encouraging omen, she said.

This story was changed from its original version to correct how the Colorado Charter School Institute can get involved with a charter school.

daler@durangoherald.com



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