Boreal Academy pursues school-within-a-school model

PALMER — Though her plans have been scaled back, one of the teachers heading up an effort to create Boreal Academy of Science and Art is very excited.

“This looks like a really good option and a win-win situation for everyone, and especially for kids,” said Laura Wick.

The plan is to create Boreal Academy as a school-within-a-school rather than as a charter school. A charter is a standalone school that operates under the umbrella of the district, but has a great deal of autonomy. But a school-within-a-school is housed at an existing borough school and becomes a part of that school’s community. Boreal will be housed at Machetanz Elementary. The idea is to start out with one class at each grade level, depending on enrollment, kindergarten might be combined with first grade or fourth grade with fifth grade.

“We need to make that mutually beneficial so we will be offering maybe programs, curriculum, (or) our expertise to the other classes in the building,” Wick said.

She said she might also run things like art or science clubs.

She noted that the decision to go for a school-within-a-school came at the 11th hour as the charter school idea was being presented to the Mat-Su Borough School Board and moving on to the state. The school district’s superintendent, Ken Burnley, recommended at a meeting Nov. 17 that the school board not attach its blessing to Boreal’s application when it heads to the state.

Wick said she could understand the district’s reticence.

“They don’t want any Tom, Dick and Harry to start a charter school. They want it to be a difficult process so people are thoughtful and deliberative,” she said.

Boreal Academy will have a number of features distinguishing it from other schools. Education at Boreal will start with science, for one thing.

Students will engage in some kind of science experiment. An example Wick used was investigating how snow melts. Through that they will form questions, thus building critical thinking skills. Students will also build on their reading skills as a means to understand what they’re investigating. Writing is a means to explain what they discovered. Math is used to measure temperatures and weights and other similarly scientific concerns.

Another way Boreal will stand apart is in what Wick calls “place-based” and “service-based” education — a pithy way to say that students will go on a lot of field trips.

Wick said the school would work in partnership with various state and federal agencies, like parks departments, the state’s departments of natural resources and fish and game. She said she also hopes to work with the state’s department of agriculture. Those agencies would help set up the children’s experiments for hands-on, real-world learning.

“We want our students to see what the scientists are doing in their field,” Wick said.

The school will retain some of the elements common to charter schools. For instance, admission will be done on an application lottery system open to students throughout the district. That presents some transportation issues, but Wick said Boreal will have bus service, though maybe it will be shuttle buses picking up large groups of students in central locations, rather than at bus stops.

Wick currently teaches at Cottonwood Creek Elementary. Before the school district made moves to standardize curriculum, she taught in much the same way she intends children will be taught at Boreal.

“Within the district now we’re required to use district materials,” she said.

And there’s no room for this kind of instruction, she said.

“I’ve not been able to use this model just because it’s very, very time consuming,” she said.

For Boreal, Wick said she plans to use curriculum that National Geographic produces for elementary schools. She’s also looking at an elementary-school program the University of California Berkeley created.

Having taught this way before, she said, she knows it’s a good model.

“On just a personal note, I still get Christmas cards and visits from students who are in college or out of school who come back and say how much my teaching has made a difference in their lives,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.