Parents raising funds to rehire 3 charter teachers

ALPINE — When it comes to their children's education, there's very little parents at Mountainville Academy won't do, including donating thousands of dollars out of pocket to pay teacher salaries.

As of Wednesday morning, parents had pledged more than $12,000 to rehire three teachers the charter school laid off last week. The fundraiser was inspired by the board of trustees' report Monday that the school overspent by $300,000 last year and is on track to overspend by another $250,000 this year.

The teachers, Danielle Beck, Trisha Remington and Denise Mott, all taught sixth-grade at Mountainville Academy until last Friday when the board announced the 11- and 12-year-old students would now be attending middle school. The sixth-grade teachers were escorted out of the building that afternoon.

Meantime, the Utah State Board of Educations wonders whether the school violated its bylaws in dismissing the teachers. State education attorney Carol Lear said it's a gray area. Education officials would have to look at the language of the charter.

State board member Debra Roberts said the state board is "at a crossroads with charter schools in terms of setting up the right processes so we maintain the integrity of the programs, the integrity of the charters."

"To build a great school, you have to have great teachers," said Tina Waters, whose sixth-grader attends the charter school. "If we treat our teachers like they are disposable, we are not going to be able to retain or attract a strong faculty."

Parents have been busily spreading the word since the board agreed Monday night to take another look at their decision to get rid of the sixth grade. It's mostly a word-of-mouth campaign, built from calling trees and email lists.

Even parents who don't have children in sixth grade are getting involved.

"I just don't think it's in the best interest of the children to change things so abruptly, said Samantha Collier, who has a fifth-grader and a kindergartner at the school.

If parents can raise $100,000 by Thursday afternoon, the Mountainville board of trustees will "possibly reconsider" rehiring the teachers, said board member Jack Garzella.

"We didn't factor that extra money into our plans when we came to the conclusion that letting the teachers go was the best plan," he said. "Even though this solved our larger problems, we knew it would cause a lot of grief for our sixth-graders."

Despite parents' enthusiastic donations, however, Garzella said he doesn't realistically foresee the board backing down and rehiring the teachers.

Merging the sixth-graders into the middle school is part of a larger plan to cut costs and comply with state codes, he said. Right now, the middle school is only about 55 percent full, so full-time teachers are only working half days. Some classes have as few as six students.

"This decision was based on more than just money," Garzella said. "We have structural issues to deal with and state compliance issues to deal with, too."

Contributing: Amy K. Stewart. E-mail: estuart@desnews.com