Kalispell Public Schools moves ahead with charter applications

Kalispell Public Schools trustees approved the submission of applications that would allow the district to create public charter schools Oct. 24, after about two-and-a-half hours of deliberation and presentations.  

While the proposed public charter schools vary in focus, the shared commonalities are flexible schedules and competency-based learning. Competency-based education, boiled down, means students advance at their own pace to master skills and concepts set by teachers.

“The spirit of the charter bill really asked us to come up with ideas … find needs that we’re not currently serving in our public school system and that is what we have done,” said Flathead High School Principal Michele Paine.

Application proposals include PACE (Personalized Academic and Career Exploration) Academy at Flathead, Rising Wolf Charter School at Glacier High School, Rocky Mountain Academy at Kalispell Middle School, and for grades kindergarten through fifth, Kalispell Community Partnerships Charter.

Tuesday’s decision allows administrators to refine applications and meet a Nov. 1 deadline to submit them to the state Board of Public Education for consideration.

If approved, district interim Superintendent Randy Cline said the charter schools will need the board’s final stamp of approval prior to opening for the 2024-25 school year.

The action follows the passage of House Bill 549 this year, which authorizes public charter schools in Montana.

The proposed public charter schools will operate under Kalispell Public Schools and be governed by the district’s board of trustees. They will operate on budgets separate from the public school system’s high school district and elementary school district budgets. The Board of Public Education will monitor charter school compliance and performance.

School officials decided to forge ahead with applications this year to get ahead of the curve of what eventually will become future competition from other charters.

Charter schools are publicly funded, tuition-free and open to any student living in Montana with preference given to students living within a school district’s boundaries, under HB 549. If more students want to enroll than a charter school can accommodate, a lottery must be held.

In exchange for exemptions from or variances to many state laws and regulations that public schools follow, charter schools are bound to the terms of a contract. Initial contracts are for five-year terms.

To receive state funding, a high school charter must enroll at least 40 students, 20 for a middle school charter and 70 for an elementary charter.

Charter schools will receive an annual basic entitlement, according to Cline and district Assistant Superintendent Peter Fusaro. The state would fund 80% of basic entitlement, Cline said. He said the high school entitlement is about $274,000; the middle school entitlement $117,928; and the elementary entitlement is $58,983.

Like their existing public school counterparts, charter schools would also receive per-pupil funding from the state.

Facing budget cuts to the existing high school district and elementary district, Trustee Jinnifer Mariman voiced concerns with taking on additional school budgets.

“We are facing a really dire situation this year and we are looking at making significant cuts,” she said. “I also know in two years our Legislature might change their mind on this and we might not have funding for this in two years. And once we put programs in place, it's really hard to take them back.”

Cline didn’t see funding for charter schools going away any time soon with the backing it received.

“This is where they want us to go,” Cline said. “This is what they wanted to see in the future of education is flexibility. This ability for students to prove their proficiency … and of course career-based and work-based [learning].”

During Tuesday’s meeting, trustees also heard from Glacier High School Assistant Principal Alan Stanfield and Principal Brad Holloway as well as Elrod Elementary School Principal Jeff Hornby and district Assistant Superintendent Matt Jensen.

All of the district’s charter proposals are “school within a school” concepts, meaning they would be housed within an existing school and would not require a separate building. Operating in an existing school means the charters would have access to equipment, resources and extracurriculars available to current students. In the proposals, charter schools would also share school administrators and staff with the exception of creating a career coordinator position for Flathead’s PACE Academy. While the details of staffing aren’t fully fleshed out, some school officials said a teacher could divide their day teaching classes for charter students and non-charter students or have a special assignment.

All the proposals incorporate variations of block scheduling from kindergarten through 12th grade.

FLATHEAD’S PROPOSED PACE Academy will be a career- and work-based concept serving 10th, 11th and 12th grades. Students would complete their core classes and a Career Exploration course. Classes would be teacher-guided but self-paced, allowing students to accelerate their studies as warranted. Interventions would be provided to students who fall behind and are not on track for completion.

Paine said the flexible format of the academy’s core classes is based on Launched Academy, which she visited, in Cedar City, Utah.

“I will admit that I was a skeptic,” Paine said. “How are you going to do math? How are you going to do English if it’s all flexible? But I can tell you I was able to see it in action and kids were scheduled at a certain time but, man, they were doing all different kinds of things.”

Paine said this included students working individually and in small groups in and outside the classroom while the teacher worked one-on-one with a student.

“One of my biggest takeaways, when I went and visited the Launched Academy school in Utah, was the hardest part about doing this is having to kind of keep tabs and have a clear eye on the kids who are struggling. Right? And you need a very systematic approach to supporting kids who are struggling,” Paine said, noting that she would support teachers in setting up an intervention structure.

She said a lot of the proposed teaching methods, namely digital or online components, teachers learned to do during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“My science department, they're all really excited about this because they said, ‘Hey, we can, you know, we know how to do short video lectures. We know how to set up labs and, man, wouldn't it be cool if kids could work flexibly through the pacing of a year-long science class?’ And so there's excitement among the teaching staff,” Paine said.

She said it’s a direction of flexibility that the school has wanted to pursue.

In this Career Exploration course, students will participate in work-based learning through internships or apprenticeships, for example, or complete project-based learning activities connected to different careers.

“One of the things that led us to this is the fact that currently out of our senior class, we have around 20% of kids finish a semester early and they do so for a variety of reasons. One of the biggest reasons that I see — because they all come across my desk and I get to read about why kids are graduating early — they will say that they've finished their requirements. They have a job that they want to move forward with. That's the most common reason,” Paine said. “Sometimes kids will want to start college early. That's another reason.”

After sitting on various industry-related advisory councils Paine said she hears the same requests time and time again.

“It doesn’t matter the industry. They all say we have jobs. We have good-paying jobs. We don't have people to fill those jobs,” she said. “How can you as a school help us connect kids with these career path areas and get them started? So that we can feel the need here in our community?”

If approved, the school anticipates enrolling 50 students in the first year, setting a maximum enrollment of 150 students.

GLACIER’S RISING Wolf Charter School will serve grades ninth through 12th with a focus on flexible scheduling for students who aren’t finding success in a typical seven-period day.

Rising Wolf proposes creating learning blocks modeled on the University of Montana Western’s Experience One (X1)  program. 

Under the model, charter students will concentrate on one subject at a time. Classes would meet in a three-hour block for about 24 days then move on to their next block, and so on. 

“It allows for no other distractions of course work that you’re studying and you just get through an entire semester’s worth of work in a shorter period of time. That’s how Montana Western basically functions all year long,” said Alan Stanfield, assistant principal at Glacier High School.

The goal is to allow students to go more in-depth in a subject and provide more time for hands-on learning and intervention, before moving on to the next intensive core class or elective. 

“We really felt like when we look some at our high-failure rate classes, their freshman level classes, English nine, earth science, biology, algebra one. Some of these freshmen that come to us [with] seven classes in that school day for an entire semester is a lot of transition for them to juggle their first semester,” Stanfield said. 

Students could opt for a half or full day in the charter.

“So if a kid chose to be in an X1 block for part of their day, they could be doing an English credit for 24 days, finish it, move on to a science credit for 24 days, finish it and then move on to math or technically an art elective that chooses to be in the next one block, finish it and they would end up with the same amount of credits at the end of the semester. But they were never juggling those three classes at the same time. They had that sheer focus on one intensive learning experience,” he said, both from a student and teacher perspective based on conversations with Montana Western.

Trustee Ursula Wilde asked if it’s a reasonable expectation for teenagers to pay attention in the hours-long blocks.

“We asked that question of Montana Western and I have lived in a world where I did teach a 100-minute block, so not quite that long, but you obviously will facilitate and take some natural breaks. But they have found from a pedagogical standpoint more benefit to the longer, increased time. So the more you reduce those transitions of a bell ringing, getting up, getting things [cleaned or set up] … actually facilitates better learning, more in-depth learning experiences,” Stanfield said, such as in science labs or working on art projects, for example.

Glacier Principal Brad Holloway said there are some classes that are not ideal fits in X1.

“West doesn’t offer languages in this format … I think music is another one. So there's places where it's not ideal but that's the idea of students can choose some of it and then still have the opportunity to be involved in some other areas,” he said.

Stanfield added, “So, we're providing, in our charter, the opportunity to break free from the traditional schedule in ways that both students and staff have the desire to do so.”

If a student achieves proficiency ahead of schedule, they could move ahead or use the extra enrichment time to study. If a student struggles or falls behind, the scheduling model allows for extra time to relearn and reassess.

The school is requesting a variance in grading. Students will not receive “F’s” in the charter. 

“If credit is not earned by meeting the stated proficiency levels for that course, that will simply mean the student has not shown enough evidence yet to earn credit. Until the credit is earned, it will show as Incomplete until the proficiency level is mastered,” the application states. 

There is also the possibility for a student to obtain credit for career exploration and training such as earning certification in the health care industry, or completing a trades apprenticeship through Flathead Valley Community College, for example.

“The goal of our charter school will be to reduce the stress load of students who want a smaller load of courses while not falling behind on their graduation requirements,” Glacier’s application states.

“At the end of the day, a charter school student could be in as few as two courses at a

time, but still be on track for graduation when the semester is complete,” it continues.

The school anticipates 45 students enrolling in the first year, setting a maximum enrollment of 300 students.

DISCUSSION TURNED to the elementary and middle school level where the focus is on attracting families and working harder to collaborate with parents looking for an alternative schedule, such as home-schooled students, according to Assistant Superintendent Matt Jensen.

“When we start talking about elementary students, there's obviously a difference between the flexibilities,” Jensen said, such as block scheduling.

Jensen said it’s challenging to break out from the mold of operating elementary schools in particular

“It’s just how the classroom is facilitated is different. Instead of a lot of sole-teacher full-group instruction — everybody’s getting the same lesson — there’s clearly defined standards and progression,” Jensen said, through teacher facilitation.

If students demonstrate proficiency to the teacher they can move on, which is competency-based learning. This is a change from an entire class “focusing on completing an assignment that was really written for the middle-of-the-road student.”

The Kalispell Community Partnerships Charter, which would be housed at Elrod and Russell elementary schools is looking at a minimum to a maximum enrollment of 158 to 300 kindergartners through fifth-graders. The school week would include on-site and remote learning.

Hornby provided some background on the fairly recent endeavor, which was less fleshed out than the current high school applications.

“First of all, I want to say that the idea of a charter school, which was brought up about two and a half weeks ago, maybe, was never something in my vision of possibilities. This is my 30th year in schools in this valley and I have been proud to be part of a public school. And so when this came about, really what it did for us was open doors and you guys heard that from the high school. Just opportunities that we've been dreaming about that now we can kind of be pushed a little bit more into,” said Elrod Elementary School Principal Jeff Hornby. 

During that time, Hornby said the schedules went through eight or nine versions and had conversations with home-school and private school instructors to find out what parents wanted.

The elementary charter emphasizes community partnerships and collaborations with families, and community organizations and businesses in designing instruction, schedules and other activities. Another emphasis is to provide students with more hands-on learning opportunities with an outdoor education component. Project-based learning is also another focus where students apply their knowledge to come up with solutions to real-world problems.

Students will take AimsWeb benchmark tests and state standardized tests as one of the ways to track proficiency.

The Rocky Mountain Academy at the middle school will serve sixth- through eighth-graders. 

The academy would focus on career exploration and extended learning opportunities achieved through project-based learning and, like the elementary charter, community partnerships to set students up with job shadowing, internship and mentorship opportunities.

According to its application, the career and technical curriculum is expected to include, at minimum, three yearlong trimester courses “that are infused into core academics. 

The school day would operate on one hour and 30-minute blocks that are broken up by small group and whole group instruction through on-site and remote instruction. Built into a proposed schedule is time to take other electives or get extra support.

The school expects a minimum enrollment of 60 students in the academy in its first year. The application states a maximum enrollment would be determined based on demand and need after the second year of operating.

Similar to the Kalispell Community Charter, Rocky Mountain Academy students will take AimsWeb and state standardized tests as a method of assessing proficiency.

DURING THE public comment period, Kalispell resident and parent of a second-grader, John Mimnaugh described the charter school endeavors as aiming for the bare minimum.

“How do you get the same amount [of learning] in less time? I don’t understand,” Mimnaugh said.

He also wasn’t favorable to turning a humanities-based education into internships.

“Tell local businesses to train their own employees,” he said, later adding in regard to internships, “They should be paid. Internships exploit students. Always have. We can do better than this. It’s just going to suck money and it won’t have better outcomes.”

“It’s OK for a welder to have read poetry,” Mimnaugh said. “I’m OK with living in that world.”

Later during discussions, Trustee Ursula Wilde also expressed reservations about students attending school in an “a la carte” fashion.

“I also have the same concern that we heard in public comments. I don't want to just get kids into the workforce,” Wilde said. 

In regard to the elementary charters, “I want all of the kids in the community to get the best education they can and if some time in school is improving that, I like that, but I do worry that the piecemeal part of it could potentially undermine that overall.”

While Wilde supported the increase in options, she expressed worry that a student would come in for reading only, for example, or math, and if they’re struggling what do you do?

“That choice is kind of a double-edged sword I guess is my concern,” she said.

“You just summed up the last legislative session,” Jensen replied. “Really, it’s just talking about parent rights and parent choice.”

Jensen said the direction of community partnerships is an opportunity to work with parents.

“We want to partner with more people in our community and we want to do a better job of listening to parents,” he said.  

If approved, all schools would begin marketing the charter options in January and February 2024. Enrollment for the 2024-25 school year would be finalized in the spring, around May, with the first day of school set for August.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.