Mark West Union School District adding seventh and eighth grades in new charter school

Parent-initiated program will start with 80
students
by NATHAN WRIGHT, Staff Writer
The Mark West Union School District is opening a new charter
school next fall. It will be the first time the district has
offered education beyond the sixth grade.
“It’s a wonderful experience to open a new school,” said
district Superintendent Peggy Green. “It’s really exciting.”
The Mark West Charter School will eventually include seventh and
eighth grades, giving parents in the Mark West area the opportunity
to send their children to a local middle school. In the past, Mark
West students have moved on to schools in Santa Rosa and Windsor
after the sixth grade.
The charter school will start with only seventh grade classrooms
for the 2004-2005 school year. The following year eighth grade will
be added.
While there are no immediate plans to offer lower grade
classrooms, the charter allows for that possibility.
It was the initiative of parents that got plans for the new
school rolling.
“It was started by parents, and supported by teachers and the
superintendent,” said Joan Gibson, a Mark West parent and chair of
the new school’s board.
The charter school will eventually be located on the Mark West
Elementary School campus, but because of ongoing construction on
that campus, it will spend its first year at San Miguel Elementary
School.
“We’re integrating a traditional education program with our
home-study program,” said Green who estimates that 56 of next
year’s proposed 81 students will attend class full time, while an
additional 25 home-study students will come for enrichment classes
and special programs.
According to Gibson, the charter school has been designed with
three core characteristics in mind. The school will foster the
safe, small school environment enjoyed at the district’s elementary
schools, parent volunteers will be integrally involved in the
program and the school will continue to promote the district’s high
academic standards.
“We took those three issues and we built around them,” said
Gibson. “We will have parents on campus, every day. We’ll have
hands-on learning.”
The district is giving the charter school the opportunity to
develop its own independent program. The school is a non-profit
public benefit corporation, and its board will control the school’s
budget independently of the rest of the district.
The charter school will have its own principal, teachers and
staff. It will receive state funding for each student, and will pay
fees to the district for its facilities.
Though fees for some of the district’s independent study
students will follow those students to the new charter school,
Green said it will not adversely affect the district’s budget for
its other schools. “For our district it’s a wash,” she said.
As of last week, 80 applications had been received for the 56
seventh-grade spots projected for the charter school’s classrooms
next year. Gibson said the high number of applications is
reassuring.
“We’re confident that this is going to happen,” she said. “Our
fear is that we’re going to have to turn people away.”
The charter school will join Mark West Elementary School, San
Miguel Elementary School, and John B. Riebli Elementary School in
the Mark West District, which is located between Santa Rosa and
Windsor. The district serves approximately 1,600 students.