Sandpoint Charter unveils high school

SANDPOINT — Principal Alan Millar stands inside Sandpoint Charter School’s new building and says this is where the funding ran out.

Right here, he says, marking a line on the concrete floor as sunlight filters through the building’s super-size windows.

“Actually, it is a couple feet over,” Scott Wohlschlager, an architect in training for CTA, the Sandpoint firm that designed the building, says.

Regardless where the imaginary line falls, about 6,000 square feet, or one-third of the school’s new, state-of-the-art structure will go unfinished after the scheduled May completion date unless the school can find additional funds.

In a way, Wednesday’s tour of the new school building was a showcase for what could be.

The tour was attended by fewer than a dozen people including officials from the USDA, which provided a $2.2 million loan in combination with Mountain West Bank and $133,000 in grant money toward the $3.3 million building project. An additional $100,000 grant was secured from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation. Members of local education groups, as well as the business community also attended.

Millar and school board member Jen Crawford are well-versed in the school’s philosophy of providing students with open space, sunlight and fresh air as they work on projects that incorporate a variety of disciplines. They pointed out the new building’s features:

A huge commons, similar to those found in universities and colleges, makes up most of the 20,000-square-foot structure. Small classrooms where teachers give lectures and spend time with individual students. A block of computers that students use for reference and research, plenty of sunlight falling through the 12x14-foot windows, and lots of open space.

“It’s not at all like any other school,” Millar said. “It’s specific to our philosophy.”

Because Sandpoint Charter School offers classes to students grades 6 through 10, but plans to start a junior year curriculum next year and not add a senior curriculum until 2011, it isn’t imperative that the new building be completed immediately, Crawford said.

The school is in the process of raising the final $500,000 through donations and grants via its capital campaign.

“We anticipate securing finding by the end of summer,” she said.

Once its completed the final 30 percent of the new building will include larger, tiered classrooms that could be used for advanced students taking college courses through distance learning, and could double as community education classrooms.

Jeff Beeman, the USDA’s area director for rural development, said his agency is the conduit for additional federal stimulus money available this year.

Most of the money is earmarked to help offset costs for rural communities to build libraries, he said, but because of the lousy economy he doesn’t anticipate voters floating bonds to pay for new library construction.

The charter school’s computer-based education model could fall under the parameters of the federal funding, he said.

“Is this an opportunity to utilize those funds?” he asked. “Maybe it is a virtual library. We want to consider what you put on the table.”

The charter school has also considered joining forces with the state’s college and university system. The move could provide post-secondary class space for the community, as well as its students, and could be another funding source.

“I’m not certain what will develop there,” Crawford said. “I do see the potential for a future partnership from the education perspective.”

New ideas are at the root of the school’s philosophy, and they keep coming.

Sandpoint’s CTA engineered the architectural plan after spending several days interviewing students and faculty.

Architects found that most learning at Sandpoint Charter takes place outside the classroom in the school’s common areas.

The building, which faces south to take advantage of the sunlight, includes an adjacent wetland that uses stormwater from the surrounding lot and the building’s roof.

It is an outdoor biology classroom in the making.

There are no halls or lockers, no cafeteria — students and faculty share a kitchen complete with microwaves — and no gymnasium is built into the new facility.

Most of the work and learning is done in the large commons where students and faculty work together.

“Everybody can see everybody,” he said. “We’re working together in a community atmosphere.”

The school, which started with 78 students four years ago, has 220 students this year. It anticipates having 150 to 200 students in each of its two buildings within the next few years.

But, Millar stresses, the new college-like facility isn’t meant only for Sandpoint Charter School students and faculty.

“Everybody should be using it,” he said. “That’s the goal.”