Fronteras fights through inner turmoil

WASILLA — A heated, five-hour meeting of the Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School governing board this past week ended with the resignation of the school principal and a pall of uncertainty cast over the school’s future.

More than 30 parents and teachers voiced concerns to the fledgling school’s Academic Policy Committee about whether the fact that Principal Casey Bowen is married to founding teacher Wendy Bowen prevents teacher and parent grievances from being handled objectively and what role the APC board should play in resolving the inherent conflict of interest.

One message rang out loud and clear above all others, however: The majority of those involved in the K-8 school of nearly 200 students love it there and don’t want to see Fronteras fail.

“I really value the quality of education my daughter is receiving there,” parent Michelle Nyland said before the meeting. “It just breaks my heart that all this turmoil is going on because everyone is so invested in seeing the school pull through. I’m just hoping we can use this as an educational experience and learn how to be more supportive of our staff.”

In the end, the weary principal plopped down his resignation letter in front of APC Chairman Ernie Hetrick and shook his head.

“I’m done,” Bowen said before the board abruptly adjourned at 12:15 a.m. He said he would remain as the school’s leader until the end of this school year.

Left unanswered after the Tuesday meeting were questions about where the school goes from here, who is going to lead it forward and how such issues will be dealt with in the future.

Bowen said Wednesday he doesn’t see any way he can remain as principal unless a new APC board is elected. There are eight seats on the 11-member board that expire this month and will be filled during the week of April 25.

It became clear during Tuesday’s meeting that Bowen has struggled with the way the board has handled teacher grievances pertaining to his wife and himself and how the Fronteras community was surveyed as part of his job performance evaluation.

The Frontiersman began getting calls and emails over the past week from angry parents who said they felt the board was pushing Bowen out without due process or a fair hearing.

Former APC board member Chris Cadieux said in an email to some parents that he decided to resign from the board recently because he felt the rest of the board was basing its opinions of the principal on the testimony of some vocal teachers who claimed they would not remain at the school if the Bowens continued to control it.

“I was shocked that our children would be used as bargaining chips,” Cadieux wrote in his April 7 email. “We were also told that the school risked losing many native speaking Spanish teachers if action was not taken.”

One of those Spanish-speaking teachers, Liliana Taner, said during Tuesday’s board meeting that the Bowens have allegedly harassed and intimidated some teachers this past year and those teachers feel they don’t have any recourse because of the way the school’s governance is set up.

“Teachers feel oppressed,” the first-grade teacher said, explaining that last October during a school carnival the principal chased after her in the school parking lot and screamed at her in front of parents and guests. “This is illegal what they’re doing. I feel I have been mistreated and harassed and not valued. This needs to be resolved in the district or in court. I want to be able to come to work here and be comfortable and do the best job for the students.”

Bowen said he was simply trying to get Taner’s help in resolving a complaint about a dog being in the building that night.

He said the incident quickly mushroomed into a “kangeroo court” where he didn’t feel he was getting a fair hearing.

Wendy Bowen, a kindergarten teacher, also spoke during Tuesday’s meeting, saying she felt personally attacked by fellow teachers and the board.

“I was raked over the coals by the board,” Bowen said of a previous executive session, adding she would have brought a union representative with her if she’d known the board was going to treat her so poorly. “I hope no one ever, ever has to go through what you put me through. This needs to stop. This whole thing has gotten out of control and I’m sick of it.”

Wendy Bowen was one of three teacher representatives on the board before resigning from that post recently.

The board released a statement to parents and staff Friday in the hopes of keeping up morale and preventing a mass exodus from the charter school that opened three years ago in two leased buildings off Bogard Road.

“This past couple weeks many in our community were made aware of some of the failings and weaknesses of our system. The outcome has been heart and soul rending and shaking us all,” the letter states. “Our failings, it turns out, have paralleled our idealism and zealousness for Fronteras and its success. In our preoccupation to better our school, missteps have been taken and misunderstandings allowed to fester.”

The letter asks everyone to remember they are all there for the children and to provide the best learning experience for them.

It encourages them to attend the school’s enrollment lottery Wednesday at 5 p.m. in Building A’s Multipurpose Room, where they will be able to meet the new APC board candidates. Each candidate will have five minutes to tell the Fronteras community why they are the right person to lead the school.

One of those candidates will be Nyland, the young mother of a bright-eyed second-grader who says she just wants to make a positive contribution to the school she loves.

Nyland said Friday that one of the major tasks ahead for the board will be to find a permanent location that doesn’t cost the school about $350,000 per year in rent, which it is now paying to a church.

In the board’s letter to parents and staff Friday, it reiterates the spirit of cooperation and adventure that helped create the school in the first place.

“We will do more than survive; we will thrive,” the board said. “As we reflect upon the adversity from where our school arose, as a Phoenix, to become one of the Valley’s most prominent and respected programs, the answer is resoundingly clear, ‘absolutely.’”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.McKee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.