Mid-Valley set to make transition to charter

MAT-SU — Creating a charter school beginning in the middle of June and opening the doors in September would seem a Herculean, almost insurmountable task.

But American Charter Academy School has something going for it. It’s already a school — it used to be called Mid-Valley High School.

Mid-Valley, similar to Burchell High School, picks up high school students who have dropped out of more traditional schools. Mid-Valley serves between 150 and 190 students in grades 6-12.

But over the last three years, Mid-Valley has been the most underperforming school in the district.

Becky Huggins, the school’s principal, said that just as Wasilla High School didn’t like being labeled a “drop-out factory,” by a national publication a few years ago, “Mid-Valley folks do not like the label of being consistently lowest achieving.”

By retooling the school and morphing it into a charter, Mid-Valley has an opportunity to go for more state and federal money available exclusively to charters, she said. But it also gives the school a chance to revamp itself.

“It’s a clean slate and a new start,” Huggins told the Mat-Su Borough School Board at a recent meeting.

The school would still serve the same kids, Huggins said. In fact, those already in the school will be given slots in the new one.

The alternative, said school board president Colleen Vague, isn’t to just go on doing what the school has been doing. Some federal funding is tied to performance.

“They would have to replace Mrs. Huggins, 20 percent of the staff, and the school would shut down for a year,” Vague told the school board. “That’s what happens if this doesn’t happen.”

That left a bad taste in at least one school board member’s mouth.

“In a way it’s a game. This is a game that we have to play,” board member Mike Dunleavy said before pointing to the federal No Child Left Behind Act he said mandates the change. “This is an NCLB game that’s costing money, time, effort.”

He said the board should have a discussion about whether taking federal money actually helps the district.

Assistant Superintendent Deena Paramo said there’s a certain problem specific to these kinds of alternative schools. The staffing levels there are the same in terms of student-to-teacher ratio as at larger schools.

“They are trying to provide services to children that we know need additional inputs,” but don’t have any additional staff to get the job done, Paramo said.

Burchell is in the same situation. The state has pointed out the charter school route the district can take. The money attached to that could help the district better meet the needs of these kids, Paramo said.

But it wasn’t a simple matter. The debate over making the move spanned two school board meetings. A June 2 meeting contained multiple hours of the school board members debating different pieces of the deal. The subsequent June 7 meeting had hours of debate, after which the board decided to create the school.

One of the bigger issues concerns whether American Charter Academy School should have to pay for supplies and equipment that was previously the property of Mid-Valley. On one side of the issue are board members who seem to think that was only fair and that it wasn’t a whole lot of equipment or of any particular good quality. On the other side are members who feel that sets a bad precedent for future charter schools.

Vague chimed in on this issue, citing the $72,000 listed in the inventory of school equipment. That figure, most agreed, didn’t represent the value of the equipment and supplies so much as it did what the school would have to pay to replace it all.

“You want to talk about throw-away kids? These kids have been thrown away,” Vague said, noting what she called the schools’ “pathetic excuses” for libraries and learning environments. “We managed to find $250,000 in our budget last year for baseball fields and we’re fussing over [$72,000].”

The side that wants to let the school keep its equipment eventually won out, though the school will be charged a nominal $100 fee.

The final vote to create the school was 6-1. The dissenter, Ole Larson, said he supports alternative schools. As a former employee of the state’s prison system, he said he knows all too well what not offering children that choice means for society when those kids without an education turn to crime. He said he also supports charter schools. His beef, he said, was with the amount of time the board was given to look over the deal.

“I support charter schools. I do not support a charter school in my opinion being slipped through this board at the last minute,” he said.

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