Kalispell Gears Up to Open Inaugural Charter Schools
Rising Wolf Charter and Flathead PACE Academy are two of the 17 charter schools that will open across Montana this month. Kalispell administrators say the charter programs will offer increased flexibility for high school students as demand for customized scheduling and career opportunities grows.
By Denali Sagner
As the academic year nears, Kalispell Public Schools (KPS) is preparing to open two charter schools, joining a handful of districts across the state who will pilot the state’s first public charter program.
Kalispell Rising Wolf Charter and Flathead PACE Academy Charter will open within Glacier High School and Flathead High School, respectively. The “school within a school” model will allow the district to leverage existing resources for the charter programs while, ideally, bringing in additional funding from the state.
At Flathead PACE Academy, 10th, 11th and 12th grade students will be able to take their core courses in a flexible block schedule through a combination of in-person and online learning. PACE stands for “Personalized Academic and Career Exploration.” The program seeks to give students the opportunity to fit internships, electives, work opportunities and International Baccalaureate courses into the school day.
Rising Wolf Charter will also offer a block schedule model. Students will be able to take a variety of classes in a block schedule, meaning that many yearlong courses could be completed in one semester through a daily double period. Course offerings under the Rising Wolf block model will include biology, algebra, outdoor education, art and Western civilization.
“We are looking good. We’ve had a lot of interest over the summer,” Flathead High School Principal Michele Paine said of Flathead PACE Academy.
The two charter schools are a product of House Bill 549, a law passed by the state Legislature last year that allows public school districts to create in-district charter schools. The schools are governed by the existing local school board, as well as an advisory council made up of parents and community members.
The Montana Board of Public Education (BPE) in January approved 19 public charter schools. Two of the 19 schools requested delays, meaning 17 charter programs are set to open this fall.
The turnaround time on establishing the public charter schools has been short — schools had roughly eight months between BPE approval and the first day of class to build their charter programs. BPE Executive Director McCall Flynn said, however, that the process has gone relatively smoothly. Flynn said that public charters have benefited from being linked to established school districts and boards, meaning that they have avoided needing to build their infrastructure from the ground up.
If each public charter school enrolls at least 41 full-time students, it will receive a base entitlement of $274,786 from the state, a potential boon for cash-strapped school districts that have suffered from inflation and an inability to pass local levies. KPS also hopes to court students from other public, private and home schools, which will allow the district to access additional per-student funding.
Paine, the Flathead High School principal, said the flexible program at Flathead PACE Academy is catered toward students who may need an alternative schedule to pursue advanced courses, college classes, internships or work opportunities.
“The way we designed the PACE Academy is to meet a lot of different needs for a lot of different students,” Paine said.
PACE Academy courses will take place in the mornings, and will function like a college schedule, where English for 11th graders may be on Mondays and Wednesdays, and calculus may be on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with flexible learning on Fridays. Paine said the program will serve as a natural extension of the district’s personalized, competency-based education (PCBE) push, which has aimed to reimagine how curriculum is delivered to students.
KPS has selected teachers who have been “innovators in flexible education” to staff PACE Academy, according to Paine. Mike Kelly, KPS director of work-based learning, will work within the PACE Academy to advise students on career-focused educational opportunities and continue to grow the district’s internship program, KPS Assistant Superintendent Peter Fusaro said.
The charter program will take place in a group of classrooms and flexible learning spaces on the second floor of Flathead High School. Paine said around 70 students have enrolled in the program so far.
KPS is working to form the PACE Academy advisory committee, which will meet for the first time in September.
Glacier High School’s Rising Wolf Charter will provide “alternative, nontraditional schedules” for students, Glacier Principal Brad Holloway said.
While the district hoped Rising Wolf Charter would offer intensive blocks in which students would finish a semester-long class in a few weeks, the program is set to instead offer a plethora of year-long courses that will be taught in double period blocks and can finished in one semester.
Holloway said the ability to offer courses in blocks has opened doors for students who may have otherwise been limited by scheduling constraints. Somewhere between 200 and 300 students are taking at least one course through Rising Wolf Charter this upcoming school year.
In addition to standard courses, the high school’s robust internship program will be housed in Rising Wolf, meaning students will be able to take internships for credit in a multi-period block.
The program will take place within Glacier High School and will be taught by existing staff.
Holloway said the school has had “a lot more kids than we expected” that are taking at least one course in the Rising Wolf block format.
The principal hopes the program will grow over the years and that the district will eventually be able to offer the intensive, multi-block classes that were initially planned for Rising Wolf.