Charter school tabled again

PALMER— After an initial rejection by the school board, appeal to the state by the organizing partnership, and referral back to the school board, Arkose Ridge Leadership Academy remains a dream.

More than 60 people assembled in support of the potential charter school during a Jan. 21 Mat-Su Borough School Board meeting, according to Paul Morley, a board member of the Partnership for Arkose Ridge Leadership Academy (PARLA).

Of those 60 people, more than 20 addressed the board during two segments of “persons to be heard,” as the allotted time for that portion was not enough to hear everyone speak.

According to Morley, Commissioner of Education and Early Development Mike Hanley had reviewed and referred Arkose Ridge back to the local school board with the suggestion that they put it on the agenda as an action item and vote on it again.

“The meeting was basically over, they met in private, I got a phone call from Assistant Superintendent Gene Stone the next day saying that the board had decided not to reconsider its original denial,” Morley said.

The partnership then made a second appeal to the commissioner. Per Hanley’s request, the school board then sent him a letter clarifying their reasons for the initial denial.

Thursday evening — two weeks later — the commissioner sent a letter to the partnership with his decision.

“Although I don’t believe that each of the concerns given (by the school board) were backed by substantial evidence, I do find enough evidence that supports the decision of the Mat-Su Borough School Board to deny the application of the Arkose Ridge Leadership Academy. I therefore am upholding the decision of the school board in this matter,” Hanley wrote.

In the letter, Hanley addressed two of those concerns directly.

The first was the perception that Arkose Academy would be directly affiliated with Alaska Pacific University, a private and once-Methodist college. In the charter’s initial application, PARLA presented their intention to use APU’s Kellogg Campus at Spring Creek Farm in Palmer as the charter school’s main facility.

“All we were asking is, ‘can (Arkose) partnership with APU, yes or no?’” said school board Vice President Ole Larson. “It’s a state issue.”

Larson referred to a part of Article 7 Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, which states, “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

But APU Outdoor and Environmental Education Graduate Program Director Steve Rubenstein said the university wouldn’t be explicitly partnered with Arkose Ridge, only a helpful hand for, say, facility space.

APU has worked with the Mat-Su Borough School District in the past, too. The university has provided teacher trainings, curriculum development, school garden construction, in-school educational service providers, home school resource assistance and more through its Palmer campus since 2005.

“In the past ten years, APU has directly served well over 5,000 MSBSD students,” he said.

Hence the interest in Arkose Ridge.

“We just felt lots of overlap with what ARLA wants to do and what we’re already doing,” Rubenstein said.

Also, the only current references to religion at APU is their value of “knowledge to spark personal, moral, and spiritual growth” and the school’s self-designation as “non-denominational,” as described on the university’s website.

“It’s a big part of our history but it’s not a very big part of our school,” Rubenstein said, of the Methodist religion.

The commissioner seemed to agree.

“While not offering a legal determination in this situation, I find that this reason is not backed by substantial evidence,” he wrote, referring to the question of legality.

The bigger issue, however, is in the numbers.

After an amendment to Alaska Statue 14.17.450(d) last April, the minimum number of students to start a charter school shrunk from 150 to 75.

Morley said prior to Hanley’s most recent decision that PARLA would be able to gather that many committed students by this fall, and maintains now that they would have been able to accomplish that if the school had been made official.

“You can’t get people to commit to a school that doesn’t exist even on paper,” Morley said.

School board President Susan Pougher disagreed.

“We don’t operate on ‘if we build it they will come,’” she said. “Our school district doesn’t dedicate money until we have students.”

Vice President Larson referenced the history of Birchtree Charter School as an example. At first, the school’s application was denied.

“What the board said at the time is ‘you have to show some sort of student commitment,’” he said. “They came back the second year with about 200 and I think they’re almost up to 400 students now.”

Pougher said Arkose’s numbers paled in comparison, as the majority of the school’s survey responders were parents of children too young to enter high school this fall.

“They’re looking for 100 ninth and 10th graders, and from the information they gave us, I only find 14,” she said.

“Nobody’s saying it’s a bad idea and we’re not gonna pass it, we’re saying the budget and the students don’t match up,” she said.

Rubenstein said there’s more to consider, however.

As the environmental education Program Director, he often works with home-schooled communities through the Kellogg Campus and Spring Creek Farm, where he has seen more support for schools like Arkose Academy than the school board probably has, he said.

“There are a large number of home-schooled students who are and would consider Arkose Ridge as a way to come back into the school district schools if and when it gets it’s charter accepted,” he said. “This is the one they would come back for, other than that they’re not interested.”

The Partnership for ARLA does have the option to appeal to the state Board of Education within the next few weeks to essentially ensure the commissioner properly examined all the information provided him by the partnership and the school board, but Morley said they’re “not inclined to do that.”

In the meantime, the partnership intends to host more open houses and get “a lot more feet on the ground, shaking hands” and getting face-to-face communication before possibly presenting the charter to the board again in the fall.

A parent’s view*

Interested parent and President of the Alaska Chapter of the American Planning Association Lauren Driscoll didn’t say where or how her daughter is schooled, but she spoke highly of Arkose Ridge.

Even though her child will not be high school students next year or the next, Driscoll was in favor of the Arkose Academy opening sooner rather than later.

“I think the school can open this fall,” she said, in response to the time issue. “There a lot of people invested in this idea and willing to put research into this.”

As for the product they’ve come up with so far, Driscoll said she’s seen the intended curriculum, and it looks like it has what “the next generation needs.”

“As a leader in planning, if you look at the curriculum at Arkose Ridge…many of the courses cover topics of sustainability,” she said.

As examples, Driscoll cited hands-on math and science classes that would answer potential student questions like “how do we get clean water” using chemical formulas, “how do you fuel a building using different types of energy,” and “how do we make agricultural development part of our everyday living?”

Driscoll’s job, according to the planning association’s website, is to help people “create communities that offer better choices for where and how people work and live.” She has had to face that issue herself in determining where to school her daughter, as her husband commutes to Anchorage for work, splitting them between communities.

“We’ve been teetering back and forth on ‘where are the best education opportunities for our daughters?’” she said. “When I see these things developing out here in the Valley, it makes me excited.”

Although her daughter won’t enter high school for several years, Driscoll said she recognizes the need to make those decisions in advance.

In addition to subject-to-real life applicability, the benefits of Arkose Ridge also would include a potentially more adaptable learning environment for certain students, she said.

Driscoll and her husband, for example, are both dyslexic. She said this makes them especially equipped for making observations about how even the “smallest” learning disabilities can affect a student’s entire schooling.

“Not every kid learns the same,” she said. “Some kids may not be thriving in (traditional school settings), not because they’re not intelligent, but because they don't learn that way.”

Driscoll emphasized the importance of all of the Valley’s 49 schools, however, in addressing the different learning styles.

“Mat-Su has lots of really great schools, and supporting Arkose Ridge doesn't mean we don't support those other schools,” she said.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

*This section not available in the print version or E-Edition of the Frontiersman.