Newest charter school accepting applications

MAT-SU — It’s full-speed ahead now for Birchtree Charter School as organizers work to fill the school before summer ends.

The school passed its third bureaucratic hurdle recently when the state OK’d its plan to start a Waldorf-inspired school here. Since then, organizers have held one informational meeting in Palmer for interested parents and plan a second sometime soon in Wasilla.

While all that’s going on, the school has formed committees to do things such as finding a school building, advertise, handle parents’ applications and hire a principal.

“It’s moving at warp speed,” said one of the main organizers, Lori Berrigan.

She said the first meeting on Thursday went well. The school’s organizers walked away with more than 30 applicants.

“We’re now going to go from about 20 people to about 100. One person can’t handle that. It was me for a long time,” she said.

Waldorf education takes into account a child’s developmental stages, delaying certain subjects until ages when science indicates their brains are more receptive. It also puts more emphasis on arts and handicrafts and experiencing nature and ancient myths.

Berrigan said one of the major next steps the school will take is to hire a principal. Organizers are taking applications for the position until Monday. Then the hiring committee will review applications and conduct interviews. Conceivably, the successful applicant could hear back by the evening of April 13.

“They truly don’t become our principal until July. But our goal is that this person will at least be willing to help us do some of the teacher hiring. They’re going to be able to step in knowing that this is a bigger job,” Berrigan said.

As for parents, their applications are due April 15. The school will hold a lottery on April 21 to select its inaugural class. The only reserved spots are for the children of the organizers, or, as Berrigan calls them, “founding parents.”

Not being involved in the application committee, she said she couldn’t get into hard numbers, but her off-the-hip estimate is that the school is at least close to, if not already, at the halfway point in meeting its enrollment goal. It will be accepting 48 kindergartners, 48 first-graders, 48 second-graders, 24 third-graders, 24 fourth-graders, 24 in a combined fifth- and sixth-grade class, and 24 in a combined seventh- and eighth-grade class.

And for parents who just can’t wait, Birchtree is running a four-week summer camp using Waldorf methods. Berrigan said that if parents want to try out the camp before making a decision on whether to enroll in the school, they probably should still try and meet the application deadline.

“If anybody is even considering this, this could be a possibility for them and their family. I would encourage them to sign up,” Berrigan said.

That way, she said, they’ll have a spot reserved and, if the way the camp classes work don’t work for their children, parents can give their spots to someone on the wait list.

Berrigan said a lot of details about the school are still up in the air. One big issues is what time of day the school will start and what time it will end. Birchtree is considering what it would have to do to be a part of the Mat-Su Borough School District’s busing system.

That would be uncharted territory — none of the district’s other four charter schools use the bus system. Finding out how, and even if, Birchtree students could ride district buses will be a major factor in deciding what time to start the day.

Berrigan expects she and her colleagues will be working hard and putting in long hours right up until that first day of school.

“It’s super busy. It’s hard to almost enjoy it because it’s been so busy. But it’s exciting,” she said. “I think a lot of people in the Valley are excited who have been watching it from the sidelines that we didn’t really know we’re there.”

Information about the school and the summer camp, as well as applications and contact phone numbers, can be found online at birchtreecharterschool.org.

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