Idaho charters, conventional schools compete

GOODING, Idaho — A few minutes after the bell pulses into his classroom, Gus Spiropulos waits for the fifth-graders to finish their noisy parade to the door and then reluctantly begins his calls to parents.

Spiropulos' approach is polite and he keeps it short; there are only a few troublemakers. But he's also careful because parents in this tiny dairy community no longer have to send their children to Gooding Elementary School, or even Gooding Middle School. Starting this fall, they'll also be able to opt out of the traditional public high school here.

That choice is as Idaho lawmakers intended when they authorized charter schools a decade ago, part of a wave of states that embraced an alternative to the conventional classroom.

Since then, conventional public schools across the state have lost students to charter schools. Gooding, however, is the poster child for the impact of charter schools on one of the poorest districts in the state.

"I'm not sure they totally understood what they were doing, the ramifications of putting a charter in a rural school district," Spiropulos said. "Now they know."

While charters have become ingrained in the educational fabric of states like Arizona, Michigan, Colorado and Florida, there are still Idaho lawmakers who consider them a threat to the traditional public school system.

Less than a year after North Valley Academy opened in Gooding, the traditional public school system has lost about 100 students — 10 percent of its total enrollment — and a portion of the tax money that supported those students.

On Feb. 10, voters had to pass a supplemental property tax levy to raise about $325,000 for the Gooding School District to ward off the elimination of music and athletic programs caused partly by the departure of the charter school kids and in partly by the economic downturn. The levy passed 669 to 393, but it also worsened a rift that emerged in Gooding when the school buses here started carrying two sets of kids.

The students headed to North Valley Academy wore sharp uniforms, khaki bottoms and polo or button down shirts in red, white and blue. The kids headed to the regular public school were suddenly different.

"It segregated the community," said Holly Church, a 30-year-old teacher who lives in Gooding and works in the public schools in nearby Wendell. "People who had been friends for 40 years are now fighting, they're saying: My kid goes to the public school, well my kid goes to the charter school."

Butch and Mary Stolzman will have grandchildren in both public school systems this fall. They voted for the levy in support of the regular public schools, but parents also seem to like the charter school.