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21st Century Community Schoolhouse is a success

Alternative education is a boon to a Salem school’s first senior class.

TRACY LOEW
Statesman Journal
June 8, 2003

Erika Little-Kelly sobbed through her first day at the 21st Century Community Schoolhouse.

She had earned only three credits as a freshman at McKay High School and was ready to give up on school.

“My mom forced me to come,” she said. “I wanted to leave.”

Three years later, Little-Kelly is among the first senior class to graduate from Salem-Keizer’s only charter high school. She already has landed a job at the retirement center operator Sunwest Management, and the company plans to pay her tuition at Chemeketa Community College, where she will take accounting.

Twenty students are in the downtown school’s first graduating class, a small portion of the 2,207 students who graduated from Salem-Keizer schools.

Some came to the school with huge gaps in their education from frequent moves or absences. Some were underchallenged Talented and Gifted students who had tuned out. Others were supercreative but had trouble with rigid lesson plans. All say that they would not have made it in the district’s large, traditional high schools.

“I really think she would have dropped out,” said Elida Perales, mother of graduate Sandra Velasquez.

A study by researchers at Western Oregon University concluded that the 21st Century Community Schoolhouse has accomplished what it set out to do: Establish a community of students, teachers, parents and businesses to help those teens who are most disconnected from school, at risk for dropping out, and lacking in direction and hope.

Today, more than 300 students are on a waiting list for the 30 to 40 slots that open at the school each year.

But the school’s future, like those of the 22 other charter schools statewide, is uncertain.

The Schoolhouse was among the first in the state to take advantage of Oregon’s charter-school law, passed in 1999. Now, it’s among the first to run out of federal startup and development grants — as much as $350,000 over three years — that came with their charter status.

Last year, the funds totaled about 15 percent of the school’s operating budget.

At the same time, Oregon’s school districts are tightening their belts to cope with lower-than-expected revenues. School boards, including Salem-Keizer’s, are under pressure to allocate charter schools only the minimum amount of money required by state law.

The situation at the Schoolhouse is even more precarious.

Its administrators say that, as word of its success spreads in the community, the school is becoming a magnet for the most difficult students, who demand more staff time and resources. The percentage of special-education students at the Schoolhouse doubled between its first and second years.

In addition, the Schoolhouse pays rent for its downtown location. Most other Salem-Keizer charter schools operate rent-free in district space.

The Schoolhouse is the only alternative charter high school in the state that doesn’t get an additional subsidy from its school district or a social service agency, said Joni Gilles, charter-school specialist with the state Department of Education.

It was the first in Salem-Keizer to be chartered under the new law; the existing Howard Street Charter School has since converted from a federal to state charter. Since then, Salem-Keizer has chartered three more schools — Optimum Learning Environment, Crossroads and West Salem Language Academy.

Schoolhouse administrators say its downtown location is one of the keys to its success, ensuring easy transit access for students, a quick connection with business and government partners, and a small-school feel.

Still, they’ve asked the school district to try to find space in a district building and to help with rent payments in the meantime.

Schoolhouse seniors say the difference for them was the personal attention and individual study plans.

“When I was at McKay, there were just too many students,” Little-Kelly said. “Here, you call teachers by their first name. You’re not just a number to them.”

They like the integrated approach to teaching.

For example, last week, teacher Ryan Kinnett took his geometry class on a treasure hunt at Riverfront Park, using handheld global positioning systems. The lesson incorporated math, science and local history.

The seniors also say they were challenged by real-world internships and by accomplishing a senior project.

That’s how Sandra Velasquez found her calling. She interned with former state Sen. Susan Castillo, now Oregon’s superintendent of public instruction, and became interested in the consequences of Measure 11, which toughened juvenile crime sentences.

She plans to attend Chemeketa next year, then transfer to a four-year college and eventually go to law school to become a juvenile lawyer.

The seniors say their success at the small school came with sacrifices.

“You miss out on going to the football games and cheerleading and stuff,” Little-Kelly said. “But it’s worth it. You get so much more. You go to this school and everybody is nice. Nobody cares what you’re wearing.”

Carolyn Smith-Evans hopes that her son will be among the class of 2006. He is a bright kid who was reading Nietzsche in middle school. But he never got good grades.

“He had good teachers who tried hard. It just didn’t work very well for him,” Smith-Evans said.

Graham enrolled in the Schoolhouse as a freshman last fall and by spring was getting A’s and B’s, she said.

“Our traditional schools just don’t work for everybody,” she said. “Somehow we have to find ways to support and nourish these learners who can be successful if they’re given a different path. 21st Century is one of those paths.”

Tracy Loew can be reached at (503) 399-6779.

contact: school@communityschoolhouse.org