3 charter teachers won't return

ALPINE — In a last-ditch effort to get three teachers who were laid off last week reinstated, parents at Mountainville Academy e-mailed everyone they knew, called people they didn't, dipped into their own pocketbooks and, in just two days, raised $40,000 to pay the teacher's salaries through the end of the school year.

Their efforts, however, didn't impress the Alpine charter school's board of trustees — enough.

"I thought it was great that they raised the money," said board member Jack Garzella, after a meeting with parents Thursday. "I just don't think, in the short term, there's a feasible way to bring the teachers back."

The board of trustees voted unanimously to continue with a plan, announced last week, to merge the 11- and 12-year-olds into Mountainville Academy's middle school program beginning in January. The three teachers who taught sixth-grade will not be returning to the school.

With the school plummeting $250,000 into the red, board members argued there wasn't time to revisit the decision. The school is also on rocky ground structurally because the middle school is overstaffed.

"Sometime this year we will have to make cuts, we will have to make changes to get the school in alignment with state regulations," said Volkmar Nitz, Mountainville Academy's financial analyst.

Furthermore, board members said, if the school were to rehire the teachers, it would create an environment of insubordination.

"I'm concerned about what message we are sending to the kids by going one way and going back," Nitz said.

Parents at the meeting called the board's justifications "red herrings." This fight was about more than just what class their students attend, they said. Before the teachers were laid off last week, there was no public mention of the school's plans to dissolve the sixth grade.

"My biggest problem is I have not had a choice in this matter," said Maj. Britt Curtis, whose four children attend Mountainville Academy. "My kid is going to be thrown into middle school without the school even asking for parental input."

Along with small class sizes, parental involvement is the biggest "golden goose" of charter schools, said Steve Curtis, a parent from Highland. The money saved isn't worth the loss of morale among parents and teachers.

"You would never see a company like Toyota or Honda solving a problem by firing people rather than going to the community," said Jeff Dyer, a Brigham Young University business professor who has a sixth-grader at the school. "The board was just so narrow with their thinking when they addressed this issue."

The Utah State Board of Education is examining the way the school handled the decision-making process.

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E-mail: estuart@desnews.com