Educators, parents propose new Fairbanks charter school
Published Monday, October 6, 2008
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — A new education option could be available to Fairbanks students as soon as fall 2009.
A plan for The Watershed School, a proposed charter school, will be voted upon at the Oct. 7 Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board meeting.
John Carlson, chairman of the Watershed School Academic Policy Committee, said the K-8 school’s concept is place-based. Students will use Fairbanks and the Interior in their education. For example, students could learn about the water cycle by studying the water cycle of the Tanana Valley.
“They will be learning by finding high-interest things around here,” he said.
Carlson also said place-based education uses the community as an educational stepping stone for students. After they understand how their community works, they can apply that knowledge to learn about the United States and the world.
The school will be an open-enrollment charter school with a student population of 150 to 190 and no tuition charge.
The Watershed School’s curriculum will focus on cultural studies, natural sciences, the public process and the local economy. Fifty to 70 percent of the curriculum will involve life skills or the outdoors. Carlson said the school will actively promote outdoor activities and will have the children explore and participate in outdoor activities as much as possible.
The school hopes to attract teachers who want to do more hands-on teaching outside of the classroom with educational subjects that tie into one another. It will also appeal to parents who want their students to be outside more often and more involved and committed to the community, Carlson said.
The district’s three other charter schools are Chinook Charter, which is Montessori-based, and Effie Kokrine, which places an emphasis on Alaska Native culture, and Star of the North Secondary School, an alternative learning center.
A goal for the school is to double the district’s physical education requirement, with a large proportion of that time spent outdoors. Other goals include focusing a quarter of the mathematics education focused on real-life experiences, integrating half of the language arts program into social studies, performing habitat improvement and doing community service.
The school is a nonprofit that has been in development for more than two years. Its policy committee consists of parents, educators and other indivduals from the scientific community. Carlson is a teacher at Ladd Elementary School and teaches place-based education and curriculum planning part-time at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The next step for the Watershed School is to find a location. Carlson said the committee is looking at renovating a space or building a new building, but either option will be adjacent to natural space.
For more information about the school, contact Carlson at 457-2144 or johncarlson@gci.net.
Contact staff writer Christi Hang at 459-7590.
Community Discussion
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Great job, John. A place-based school will certainly be a fun alternative. Good luck!
Tim Murphrey
What a great idea. As long as it does not require taxpayers any money. We are going to have a hard enough of a time paying off the current mess.
You need to do a better job on your research!! You forgot to mention that there is another charter school in the district. My son graduated from there two years ago and at the time it was the largest in the district. It has 200 students at two different schools, one in North Pole and another in Fairbanks. It has been quietly helping kids in grades 7-12 achieve academic and social success for 4 or 5 years and even offered a chance for a summer school this past spring for my nephew. Good luck to the new school.
Go for it!!!
Anything that will encourage students to learn better and get them out of the "classroom" setting I'm all for!
Many students complain that they are BORED to tears with the classes. And these are around 4-12 graders. Just when you discover there is a whole REAL world out there- you get put in a box and told what to learn! Just go exploring!
There is SOOOOOOOOO much more to learning than a teacher and a student and if you can find a way to tap into that--- MAN-you've got it made in the shade!!!!!
PEACE
This will be a great addition to the options for education in our community. Chinook was a great place for our sons when we weren't doing experience-based home-school. John has an enormous energy, talent, and a great vision. As a tax payer, I support charter schools and teachers like John who want to go the extra mile to make sure that the children of our community get the kind of education that works.
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