PALMER - Valley Tech High School could see its charter with the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District on the chopping block in the near future. A status update on the proposed charter school is on the agenda for a School Board meeting tonight in Palmer. School District officials said Tuesday they have several concerns about the school.
The charter school, which formed last January with the intention of opening this August at a site along Knik-Goose Bay Road, requires between 150 and 240 enrolled students, according to the agreement with the School District.
Proponents say they've received only 40 applications from prospective students.
This lack of students will likely fuel the board's discussion of the school's status at tonight's meeting. But district officials also cited other concerns about Valley Tech, including a lack of planning for staff, curriculum and an academic leader for the school.
The district also criticized as too expensive a 30-year, $385,000 annual lease the charter school wants to enter into with Utah-based developer Charter School Property Solutions. The school had proposed a 15-acre site along Knik-Goose Bay Road across from Smith Ballfields leased from Knikatnu Inc. and a facility built by Charter School Property Solutions. Plans submitted to the district in August detailed a three-phase development for three separate schools - for elementary, middle and high school students - with the initial high school on five acres.
District superintendent George Troxel said the $385,000-a-year lease is high compared to what other charter schools in the district pay.
Although charter schools run independently of the School District, they are funded with state funds and need School Board approval to operate.
"The caveat was the proposal called for a 30-year lease agreement with a 3 percent increase each year so at the end of that it would be over $1 million a year," Troxel said. "Funding increases in the state just don't keep up with that."
NO CONCERNS COMMUNICATED
Ken Ray, chairman of the Valley Tech High School Board, said earlier this week he had yet to receive anything from the district in writing about its concerns.
But he said that "we'd attempt to do whatever is asked of us by the district."
He could not be reached for comment to address Troxel's specific concerns.
CJ Stiegele , an Anchorage resident who founded and runs Highland Tech High School and who originally proposed Valley Tech, resigned from the board last year, as did three other board members from Anchorage.
The five current board members are all Valley residents without a background in education. To date, the group has spent a $50,000 start-up grant and a $416,530 implementation grant in its formation attempt.
Most of the start-up money was spent on consulting fees to former board members, according to Ray.
ACTION SET FOR FUTURE MEETING
The dispersion of the start-up grant was cause of concern to School Board members in September, when they were asked for the second half of the implementation grant by Valley Tech but the board approved the school's request.
Ray said the implementation grant went toward equipment like computers and classroom furniture that's currently housed in a district warehouse.
The School Board will not take action on the charter school's status at tonight's meeting.
If the School Board cancels the charter in a future meeting, the school has 30 days to correct the concerns, according to its agreement with the district.
Ray and fellow board member Lori Edwards say they plan to press forward.
"We're not going to say (to parents of enrolled students) make other plans, ..." Edwards said.
"If we were going to throw in the towel, we'd be calling all the parents to explain the situation, but at this point that's not the case."
Contact Melodie Wright at www.adn.com/contact/mwright or call 352-6721.
By Melodie Wright
mwright@adn.com