Daily News:Palouse Prairie Charter School eyeing 2009 start date

By Hadley Rush Daily News staff writer

Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - Page Updated at 12:00:00 AM

The ongoing search for a facility and past budgeting problems have again pushed back the opening date of the proposed Palouse Prairie Charter School.

The school, which hoped to open its doors this August, now won't be up and running until at least 2009, said Nils Peterson, chairman of the school's board of directors.

"The charter went to Boise" Tuesday, he said. "The commission meets on March 6, and we hope to have our charter approved then."

Upon approval, Peterson said charter school officials will move forward in securing a school facility and begin to recruit students in grades K-6.

Peterson has said the school eventually will expand to serve seventh- and eighth-graders.

"We are targeting an enrollment of 72 to open," Peterson said. "That's kind of a compromise between how small and how big (the school needs to be). We know we need to start small and that we need to recruit children away from other (schooling) alternatives."

The proposed school first sought its approval through the Moscow School District in 2006. Its board members stopped the process in September 2006 and decided to apply for a charter through the state commission instead.

"The charter was reviewed in April of 2007 by the charter commission," Peterson said. "They asked us to come back with better answers to a three-part problem."

Peterson said the commission asked charter school officials to work on budgeting, facility and enrollment issues.

"Their concern was that the budget needed to reflect a realistic facility cost," Peterson said. "And so the work that we have done in the last nine months has been primarily to address those concerns."

Peterson said he has high hopes the charter will be approved.

"I don't expect the charter would be rejected, but there might be some other issues we'd need a better job of addressing," he said.

Peterson said charter school officials are considering renting classroom space in two different areas of town.

"The 1912 Building is an appealing option because of its potential for us to grow there," Peterson said. "We have asked the Heart of the Arts board, who manages the 1912, (if the charter school could) start with a three-room facility and grow from there. We're interested in the first floor."

Peterson said The Silos development in east Moscow also has offered rental space at a cost of $13 per square-foot per year.

"The owners there have offered to build and rent to us a small school facility, but the site is limited and we'd quickly outgrow it (within) two years," Peterson said.

Brenda von Wandruszka of Moscow Realty, one of the developers behind The Silos, said Silos officials offered rental space to the Palouse Prairie Charter School because they're eager to help the school get on its feet.

"We want to help them facilitate their school," von Wandruszka said. "We would build on to the Silos to help them as soon as their charter is ready to go."

Peterson said the 1912 Center may be a better fit because of location.

"The 1912 building is really centrally located and the Moscow School District provides great busing right across the street," Peterson said, referring to Moscow High School. "We could start small and add a classroom a year for several years. We're prepared to pay a commercial lease, but I don't know what price the Heart of the Arts would set."

Peterson said Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna recently made grant money available to school organizations before their charter is approved.

"We are applying for a grant right now, which would help support a summer expedition camp in July 2008 and other planning activities," Peterson wrote in an e-mail. "Luna's efforts have brought new energy to our group, and we are confident we'll be able to open in 2009."

Peterson said the summer camp is scheduled for the last two weeks in July in Moscow.

"The theme is sustainable agriculture," Peterson said. "We'd like to work with Backyard Harvest - a middle man that helps fresh produce move from people's back yards and orchards to various kinds of food banks. (We'd like) to involve the children in that service activity."

Peterson said the grant funding would secure a venue to host the camp and pay for insurance.

"We will get out marketing information when we have facility and insurance problems solved," Peterson said.

Peterson said he's excited to get plans for the school off the ground.

"We have disappointed parents several times now, but this process has proven to be much longer and more difficult than any of us banked on," he said.

For more information about the Palouse Prairie Charter School, visit its Web site at www.PalousePrairieSchool.org.

Hadley Rush can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 239, or by e-mail at hrush@dnews.com.

First Post

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Notice and Wonder

On Fri, April 13, I visited Summit School in the Spokane Valley, now in its 4th year as an Expeditionary Learning school. I was impressed by the ability of children in the Kindergarten class to cooperate and to reflect on their performance.

The scene: The children were seated in a circle that included us adult visitors. They did a greeting around the circle, greeting the neighbor on each side of them by name.

Before starting the next activity, the teacher asked the children to talk about ideas of success. She noted that there might be other kinds of success besides doing the activity. Students offered: good listening or good directions, improvement in the activity, cooperation (working together). [I later noticed that these might be dimensions in a rubric for assessing the activity.]

The teacher introduced the task called "four-man pushup." The task involves four children lying on the floor in a square, where each child hooks their feet over the mid-back of one student and has another's feet over their back.

The first round was a demonstration by one team, with a chance to observe by the others.

The challenge was for the students to communicate to one another about what was required to get into this arrangement, who should lay down first, who put their feet up to fit the next child in, etc. Then when they were ready, they counted 1-2-3 and pushed up with their hands, raising all four bodies.

Following the activity, the teacher directed one child to get a marker and another a piece of paper and for the team to make notes on their performance. They each wrote an observation about the activity. All this happened quickly and smoothly, clearly this activity was practiced.

All the while the other children watched the performance and the teacher provide a little meta-analysis (noting the turn-taking during the reflections, or how one student offered to scribe for another who spoke her observation.

Divided into teams of four, the whole class did the activity, in an organized and cooperative manner.

What was also impressive was that the teams could quickly be formed, and that each team found its own leadership, did the activity, and moved on to reflected on what they did, making sure each make a written contribution.

Back in the big circle the teacher asked the children to reflect on their reflections (called Notice and Wonder) and look for "Big Ideas" that could help them in this activity and in other activities. The students came up with: "Worked together" and "On topic."