Charter School Survives Rough Debut, Looks Toward Smoother Year: TWINDLY BRIDGE: Parents and School Staff Struggled to Set Roles.

By Becky Stoppa, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Sep. 20–WASILLA — While an internal power struggle and low test participation made for a bumpy first year at Twindly Bridge Charter School, hopes run high that a new principal can help the school right its course.

Twindly Bridge serves about 210 students. Its doors opened in August 2005. It is one of three charter schools operating in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District. Its founder, Anna Roys, said the school blends the independence of home-school study with traditional public-school structure.

Twindly Bridge parents choose a curriculum and manage most of their children’s education at home. They must develop a learning plan for each child and maintain monthly contact with one of the school’s two teachers.

Parents must submit samples of their children’s work in math and writing each quarter and see to it that their children complete all state-mandated tests each year.

Twindly Bridge in turn offers workshops for parents and on-site activities for students to enhance home-based programs. It offers guidance and support in helping students meet state standards and fulfill high school graduation requirements.

“The whole idea was to try to bring into the school what the home-school community has learned and to bring into the home-school community the best of what (traditional) schools have learned,” Roys said.

Richard Webb, chairman of the Academic Policy Committee, said Twindly Bridge parents, teachers, supervisor and governing board spent the first year struggling to define their respective roles and deciding how best to run the school.

“Some people were saying we need more structure, we need more accountability, we need to be in classes more. Others were saying, ‘No, we need to be independent,’ ” Webb said.

Twindly Bridge determines much of that on its own, said assistant superintendent George Troxel. But it consumed anywhere from five to 20 hours of the School District administration’s time last year, he said.

Troubles at Twindly Bridge proved so time-consuming that district administrators cited them as one reason the School Board should deny an application for a fourth charter school, Highland Tech Valley High Charter School, in August.

In contrast, the district’s other two charter schools, Academy, which opened in 1996, and Midnight Sun, which opened in 1998, operated independently from the start, Troxel said.

But Twindly Bridge was at a disadvantage, Roys acknowledges. Roys, who wrote the school plan and was the school’s supervisor last year, has no public school experience.

Barbara Gerard, principal and a founder of Academy Charter School, said School District insiders created Academy and Midnight Sun.

“We knew what worked in the district so we implemented those things right away,” Gerard said.

Regardless of the founders’ experience, starting a charter school is tough, said Terri Austin, president of the Alaska State Charter School Association and one of the creators of Chinook Montessori Charter School in Fairbanks. Founded in 1995, Chinook is the oldest charter school in the state, Austin said.

Most charter schools run smoothly after three to five years, Austin said.

Statewide, fewer than five have failed since the Legislature passed the Charter School Act in 1995, she said.

This year, Twindly Bridge has a half-time principal, Greg Miller, who was principal at Butte Elementary School from 1989 until he retired in 1999.

Roys and Webb say they’re hopeful Miller can streamline operations, optimism Gerard says is warranted.

“It gives them that ‘in’ right away,” she said. “It just opens doors.”

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Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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