Palouse Prairie receives large grant from Idaho Department of Education

By Halley Griffin, Daily News staff writer
November 26, 2008
appearing in Moscow-Pullman Daily News - DNews.com

The Palouse Prairie Charter School recently received a $671,949 grant from the Idaho State Department of Education, and will use the money to train the school principal, board and teachers.

The school has been in the works for several years and is slated to open for business next fall.

The school also may use some of the grant money for computers, furniture and library books, or certain remodeling projects, said Nils Peterson, chairman of the Palouse Prairie board of directors.

"This is hugely helpful," Peterson said. "We applied for $650,000. You need all that sort of stuff to start up a school."

Palouse Prairie will receive $200,000 of the grant this year, and will receive two more payments later on if it meets its yearly goals.

The Idaho Department of Education applied for federal funding to provide grants for schools developing innovative programming, Department of Education School Choice Coordinator Shirley Rau said.

Eleven schools were awarded grants that can be renewed for up to three years. Three of the awardees are start-up charter schools, she said. Idaho currently has 31 charter schools, with six more scheduled to open next fall.

Rau said Palouse Prairie's application stood out to the panel of reviewers.

"Palouse Prairie's application was very unusual in the fact that it had an extremely high level of professional development," Rau said. "The reviewers were very impressed with their proposal."

Palouse Prairie Charter School will operate on an expeditionary learning outward bound model, in which students learn through an "integrated inquiry process," Rau said. In other words, if students are studying the effect of rainwater on the local environment, their reading, writing, math and science classes will all be integrated into the study of rainwater.

"It's not an easy educational model to implement or replicate," Rau said, adding that the school's grant application also stood out because of its high percentage of funding devoted to teacher development in the expeditionary learning model.

"That will really make that a good, solid school," Rau said.

Peterson said the school is searching for a principal.

"We're just about to start screening candidates," Peterson said. "We would like to have a contract for the person in January."

Ashley Ater-Kranov is chairwoman of the principal search and a member of the school's board of directors. She said the board will begin reviewing applications this week, conduct phone interviews next week, and hopefully have the finalist come for an in-person interview in mid-December.

"What's nice is that we have quite a few (applicants) within Idaho," Ater-Kranov said.

Peterson said the board of directors would like to have the principal involved in the search for teachers and student recruitment.

Palouse Prairie Charter School is a free public school, and is open to anyone. There are spots available for 87 children in kindergarten through fifth grade. Enrollment will be open from February to March.

"Things are really revving up, and we need as many people as possible to help us do our start-up work," Ater-Kranov said, adding that there are two open positions on the board of directors. Job descriptions are posted on the school's Web site, along with contact and application information.

Palouse Prairie also received $100,000 from the J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation in August. That donation was unrestricted, so the school may use it for salaries, remodeling and operational expenses, Peterson said.

On the Web: www.palouseprairieschool.org.

Halley Griffin can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 239, or by e-mail at hgriffin@dnews.com.