Parents, children struggle with charter schools

Ashley Walker WAL02016@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

In the year 2000, Sarah Parker* moved to Blackfoot where she decided to enroll her two oldest children in the Blackfoot Charter School. Jed, 9, was in third grade, and Rachael, 6, was in first grade.

“I understand things can be extra rough during the first year of a charter school,” Parker said.

Parker heard of the school through a friend.

“I was told this charter school would use an individual curriculum so they could excel at their own pace,” Parker said.

Maren Swensen, a freshman from Fairfield, Mont., was mostly home schooled, but for a few years she attended Benjamin Franklin Academy.

BFA was a school organized with various home schooled children whose parents wrote up their own charter to try to fit the needs of their children. Only about 10 to 15 children attended this school. One teacher taught for three hours a day.

Swensen attended BFA when she was 12. She only stayed a couple of years and then went back to home school.

“I liked home school better because you could work on your own schedule,” Swensen said.

After reading about the success of a charter school in Arizona, Parker believed that her advanced children would benefit at a charter school.

That year there were 80 or 90 students, and the faculty consisted of four full-time teachers and a couple part-time helpers for the school that teaches Kindergarten through sixth-grade. Classes consisted of children from multiple grades, so Parker’s children were in the same class.

“I liked the sibling camaraderie during school,” Parker said. “[That was] another reason I liked the multi-level classroom.”

But the teacher was overwhelmed and relied on the older children to help the younger children, Parker said. Students who were behind could not improve adequately without the assistance of the teacher.

“This charter school seemed to attract children who had multiple difficulties, both socially and intellectually,” Parker said.

Though parents were more involved with their children at the charter school — Parker was on the committee for hiring and had a say in the uniforms her children wore — some parents were not as willing as others to help. This placed a higher burden on the more willing parents.

The schools are confined to the charter written by the person that starts the charter school and cannot be changed without risking funding, so Parker wished she had studied the charter before entering her children into the school.

“When Rachael returned to second grade in the public school, we found that she was merely average in her reading, where as when we placed her in the charter school she was well above average. So here she actually digressed. The expectations were too low for the kids in charter schools,” Parker said.

Both Parker’s children are in the gifted program and excelling in their classes at public school. Parker has more time to attend board meetings and volunteer in the classroom.

“I found that the attitude in this charter school was that children will learn when they’re ready to learn. If the expectations aren’t there from the teachers and parents, the students aren’t going to expect anything of themselves,” she said. “For us, the public schools here serve us just fine. The kids are also happier because they have more friends.”

*Name changed