After closure vote, some explore grant for planning, information

By REBECCA BARRETT
Gazette-Times reporter

Parent involvement has long been a hallmark of the Corvallis School District’s rural science and arts academy, Inavale School.

Still faced with the possibility of closure, parents there in February said they weren’t interested in forming a charter school.

Now, three weeks after the Corvallis School Board voted unanimously to shut down the school in June, some Inavale parents are taking another look at a charter school.

During a meeting at the school Tuesday night, about 15 parents discussed chartering as an option to keep a neighborhood school for the children in the area southwest of Corvallis.

While Corvallis School District policies reflect school choice as a widely held value, it’s not clear whether a charter school application for Inavale would be welcomed as an innovative solution to operating the school or perceived as a threat to other public schools.

A representative of the Inavale parent group has already submitted a notice of intent to submit a charter school planning grant proposal to the state Department of Education. The state considers planning grants in April and October and awards seven $50,000 grants each cycle to assist groups in developing charter school proposals.

Inavale parents are also getting advice from a leader at one of Oregon’s most successful charter schools. Kings Valley Charter School director Mark Hazelton attended Tuesday’s meeting to share information and answer questions.

Hazelton explained the steps to forming a charter school and strategies for gaining sponsorship from a school district. He encouraged parents to meet with Corvallis School District administrators to learn how a charter could be formed without jeopardizing the savings the district achieved by closing the school.

“I don’t know what the sticking points are, but I do believe that the school board members are trying to optimize savings,” Hazelton said.

To convince school officials that a charter is beneficial, proponents must show they can operate a school and cover the district’s overhead, so that other school programs aren’t harmed, he said. Successful charter schools meet this challenge by running a school with less administration, by paying teachers lower salaries or by some other shortcut.

Inavale parents also welcomed Corvallis School Board member and former Harding School parent teacher organization president Donna Keim. When Harding closed in 2002, Keim and other parents at the school submitted a charter school application, which was ultimately denied.

Keim told Inavale parents that she is receptive to charter schools: “I think they’re wonderful.”

However, she warned them not to repeat mistakes by the Harding Community Charter School applicants, in particular, not securing district support before submitting an application.

“If you do not have the district’s support, don’t go through all the heartache we went through,” Keim said.

A charter school is a public school run by a group of parents, educators and sometimes community members as a semi-autonomous school of choice within a school district. They operate under a contract or charter between the members of the charter school and the local board of education.

Charter schools are subject to the same accountability standards as regular public schools, but are exempted from following some of the district and state school rules to allow for innovation.

Charter schools are one of the fastest-growing reforms to public education in the United States. Since the first charter school law was approved in Minnesota in 1991, a majority of states, including Oregon, has passed laws to allow them.

According to the Center for Education reform, there are more than 3,600 charter schools, serving more than 1 million students. In Oregon, there are 67 charter schools, including Kings Valley Charter School, which has had existed as a charter school in the Philomath School District since 2001, and Eddyville Charter School, which has operated under a charter with the Lincoln County School District since 2003.

Mistrust and disappointment felt by Inavale parents who fought to keep their school open was evident at Tuesday’s meeting. Suspicions were aired that the district officials have a “hidden agenda,” that officials manipulated or hid financial data to make the case for closing the school and that a charter proposal wouldn’t be given consideration by the district.

The two area charter schools, Eddyville and Kings Valley, were created after elected officials in those districts closed the schools, Hazelton explained. At first, residents in those communities were angry at the decision to close the school, but that energy was soon channeled into creating a charter school.

Hazelton said it took him about two years not to feel upset about the district’s closure decision, but he said school board members and district administrators are typically good people working hard to meet students’ needs. He described the relationship Kings Valley school has built with the Philomath School District as positive and essential.

“Let go of the animosity as soon as possible,” he said.

At a glance

THE ISSUE: Inavale School has been slated for closure in June, affecting about 180 students

THE LATEST: While district officials are developing plans to adjust school boundaries to accommodate Inavale students at other Corvallis schools, some Inavale parents are now considering the possibility of opening a charter school.

WHAT’S NEXT: Inavale parents plan to submit a grant application to the Oregon Department of Education for funding to plan a charter school.