Pocatello Community Charter School

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Status: Opened 1999
Grades: K-6
Enrollment: 120

Pocatello Community Charter School has a five-year lease for 12,500 square feet of renovated commercial office space attached to the end of a 1970's shopping mall. The facility accommodates eight classrooms, administrative offices, a library, a multi-purpose area, bathrooms, a teachers' lounge, and storage space. There is an empty lot adjacent to the building, which parents, teachers, and school board members transformed into a grassy, fenced, and irrigated playground. PCCS enrolls 120 students in grades K-6 and plans to add 7th and 8th grades by fall of 2001. The story of how Pocatello founders secured a facility and readied for opening day illustrates numerous obstacles not uncommon to charter school start-ups. The following letter from one of the founders documents the chain of events.

Despite obstacles, Pocatello opened its doors on schedule.

Sept. 14, 1999
To Collegues, Friends, and Supporters:

At 8 a.m. on Sept. 9th, 1999, Pocatello Community Charter School opened its doors on schedule with nearly capacity enrollment. By the end of the day, 115 students were enrolled and attending class. We are dipping into our waiting list to fill enrollment to the 120 students target. We have five and 1/2 teachers on staff as well as a dean, office manager, and two teaching aides. Our school features a student/teacher ratio of 20:1; multi-age classrooms; project-based, integrated curriculum; portfolio assessment; individual learning plans; and school uniforms. The path to this successful opening was filled with incredible hard work, a series of events with twists and turns, and several last-minute heroic efforts.

Pocatello finally found classroom space in a vacant shopping mall.

As many of you know, last June, PCCS had filled the 120 openings and began developing a waiting list. Meanwhile the search for a suitable facility was painfully slow. In July, after several of the Governing Board members returned from the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory Charter School Leadership Training Program in Portland, effort intensified on three activities that absolutely needed to concurrently occur. If any one of the three failed, the PCCS would not open in the fall.

The first item on the critical path was negotiation of a lease agreement for facility space. We found a decent site with 12,500 square feet at a very good price in the Westwood Mall. However, lease negotiations were difficult and included financing some of the remodeling costs.

The second item was negotiation of the design/build contract on the remodeling of the facility. The cost came in over twice the original estimate. This was also a lengthy and difficult contract negotiation.

Teachers mailboxes and bulletin boards adorn the hallways.

The third critical path item was the location of temporary space since the facility negotiations and actual construction put the available move-in date at November 1st. Because the local school district has had decreasing enrollment over the last five years, it had available classrooms. The PCCS governing board approached the District #25 Board of Trustees and requested temporary lease of six classrooms until our facility was ready. The District #25 Board of Trustees directed the district administration to execute the lease. It was now mid-August and we thought we had pulled it off; the last major hurdle was cleared and we could sign all the pending contracts, including the teachers' contracts. (We were within days of having our entire teaching staff walk for lack of signed contracts.)

In addition to these critical path activities, the PCCS board was also busy with staff development, budget issues, accounting procedures, curriculum development, special education requirements, insurance issues, etc.

Parents and students enjoy and afternoon in the garden.

Two weeks after District #25 agreed to lease PCCS six classrooms, and two weeks before the beginning of the 1999-2000 school year, PCCS hosted a Teacher-Kids- Parents picnic celebration. That same evening was a regularly scheduled District #25 School Board meeting. While PCCS teachers, kids, and parents were becoming acquainted, a group of District #25 parents and teachers were at the local school board meeting strongly protesting the lease of District #25 classroom space to PCCS. The District #25 Board of Trustees decided to review the decision in a special session five days later. The possibility that they might reverse their previous decision put our school opening in immediate jeopardy.

The very next day, several members of the PCCS governing board scoured Pocatello in desperation for alternative temporary quarters. We examined several options and fortunately found an excellent option in a defunct freight line's office complex. The facility had 12,000 square feet and required only minimal renovation in order to be functional as a school. The owners of the temporary space were incredibly supportive and the lease negotiations were easily completed. We withdrew our lease request from the school district. The major complication was the work needed to bring the facility up to fire and occupancy code for public schools. The construction contract was quickly arranged with the owners and the hardware order was expedited.

Parents, teachers, and board members worked hard
to ready the school for opening day.

Many parents, teachers, and governing board members spent Labor Day weekend moving and setting up equipment. Furniture, hardware, and supplies arrived from various storage locations in three large moving vans. Everyone worked long hours putting everything in place to open on time. On the last day before opening, the fire alarm system was still being installed as the last parts finally arrived via UPS. The Fire Marshall inspected the newly installed fire alarm system, and we received our Certificate of Occupancy at 5:15 p.m.

The next morning happy parents dropped of their kids (most of whom were already in uniforms), and now we are off to a good start!

The local press is very supportive and the details of how our drama unfolded was well covered in the media. The manner in which PCCS handled the potential conflict with some District #25 parents and teachers resulted in respect and good will from all across Pocatello. Obviously, this is still the beginning for us, but we are extremely pleased to have a beginning.

Best Regards,
Mike Engle, Vice-Chair
Pocatello Community Charter School Governing Board
MikeEngle@if.rmci.net

These stories about how selected charter schools found facilities were co-developed
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