Three Idaho charter schools provide vastly different paths to getting students down the graduation line.
Students at Valor Classical Academy follow a set of six virtues, including self-government and perseverance. A student wants to be a mom when she grows up.
Students at Idaho Arts Charter School can take dance, choir, piano, ceramics and theatre. General education classes often have an art aspect. One student wants to be a silversmith, another wants to teach guitar.
Students at Elevate Academy Nampa take classes in eight trades, including construction, medical arts and culinary. One student wants to graduate as a certified nursing assistant and join the military.
The Idaho Charter School Association last week hosted tours of public charter schools in Caldwell, Middleton, Nampa and Kuna for legislators and journalists.
“They’re making big decisions for our schools and we want to make sure that they have all the knowledge and information they need about charters to make really informed decisions,” Executive Director Nanette Merrill said.
The organization invited all legislators and candidates from districts 10 and 22, but only Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, and candidates Nancy Parker and Loren Petty showed up.
On Thursday, attendees visited Valor Classical Academy in Kuna, Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa and Elevate Academy Nampa. Each tour included pre-planned classroom visits followed by a panel discussion with selected parents and students.
Valor Classical Academy
Steffanie Empey heeded a warning from a school resource officer.
He told the mother of eight that if she sent her kids to the local high school, she would be putting them in the jungle. And she should expect casualties.
“He was speaking about spiritual, physical and emotional casualties, and I refused to accept that,” Empey said.
She had been homeschooling her kids, but when she learned about classical education and the connection to Hillsdale College, she found the right fit at Valor Classical Academy in Kuna.
“I knew that’s exactly what my family needed, and so that’s what we’ve been working towards,” Empey said. “And now we have it, and it is such a blessing.”
Head of School Sean Hunter is very transparent about what Valor provides. The school has a strict dress code and attendance policy. Students don’t use technology. They learn to read analog clocks and write in cursive. Seniors will read Dostoevsky.
“Some parents, when confronted with those realities, might choose a different option,” Hunter said. “Great. That’s the whole point of charter schools.”
Classrooms at Valor display the six virtues that students are expected to live by: courage, courtesy, honesty, perseverance, self-government and service.
“We’re making smart, good, hardworking future American citizens, and if you’re a smart, good, hardworking person, you’re going to do well, and you’re going to be prepared for whatever comes in life,” Hunter said.
That path might include college, running a business or being a parent. When fourth grader Allison Titmus was asked what she wants to be when she grows up, she was quick to respond.
“A mom,” she said.
Valor students wear navy blue polo shirts with the school logo. Boys wear gray shorts or pants. Girls can wear plaid dresses or skirts or plain-colored shorts or pants. Some wear bows in their hair. Desks are lined up in rows with every student facing the front of the class.
Six days into the school’s first year, first graders on Thursday morning reviewed routines and classroom behavior. Feet were flat, backs were against chairs, hands were holding pencils. Teachers praised students for self-government if they followed directions and kept their hands to themselves.
The classrooms and hallways were plain and undecorated. The second floor hallway was completely bare, with beige walls, drop panel ceilings and navy blue carpet.
Hunter said the hallway feels like an airport terminal. The school was built fast and under budget, he said, which meant straight lines and boxes. But the hallway will soon display classical artwork and Americana.
“Eventually, this will be the story of America,” he said.
The school is exactly what Tanya Bull wants for her fourth-grade son. She likes the uniforms and she wants traditional learning in a teacher-led classroom.
When Bull visited her son’s classroom at the district school he attended, she said student desks were facing each other instead of the teacher. She felt like her son was just memorizing facts instead of learning.
But when she took a tour of a classical education school, Treasure Valley Classical Academy, it was a different environment. It was peaceful and orderly. Students wore uniforms and the teacher was in charge in the front of the room. Desks faced forward. She said there was a difference in the spirit, culture and values.
“That just made a huge impact to where it kind of quieted my soul and I was like, ‘OK, this is the right way to go,'” Bull said.
Idaho Arts Charter School
Paper plates became paint palettes in Camilla Kohagen’s sixth-grade classroom.
“Is this art class?” Merrill asked Assistant Principal Ben Krahenbuhl as the tour group dropped in to observe.
“No, this is a math class,” he said.
The students were mixing different colors of paint to learn about ratios and color theory. One part blue and one part yellow makes green. Three parts red and two parts yellow makes orange.
“It’s a perfect example of that arts integration that we try to push into the classes,” Krahenbuhl said.
Walking through the hallways of Idaho Arts Charter School was an auditory experience. A student played the oom-pah bassline of a tuba across the hall from a student tuning a cello. But Shannon Hotchkiss’s piano class was silent.
Her students were seated at electric pianos wearing headphones, practicing for their first performance of the year. Hotchkiss walked down the center aisle with a tablet in her hand.
“What’s really cool is all I do is double click on their piano, and then I hear what they’re doing,” Hotchkiss said.
Down the hallway, students mold clay in a ceramics classroom while students buzz their lips to warm up in Anna Branigan’s choir classroom. The school has a black box theater and a dance studio.
Reese Jensen, a junior, said she was confused about her future for a long time, but coming to Idaho Arts Charter helped her realize what she wants to do: become a silversmith.
“I realized I love working with my hands, and I can express myself through making objects,” Jensen said. “And the school has helped me with this journey.”
Kazdon Olvera, an eighth grader, said he begged his parents to let him stay at the charter school. He plays guitar and saxophone and wants to study music theory at Boise State University. He would like to be a guitar teacher.
“I got really into music through this school,” Olvera said.
For Nicole Owens, the mother of four kids at the charter school, her No. 1 priority is that her kids feel safe at school. She said the district school her oldest daughter attended was not very welcoming or inclusive.
“She dealt with some bullying at her regular school, and this was in kindergarten,” Owens said.
Even if her kids don’t go on to careers in the arts, she said their experience at the school will enrich their lives.
“The entire atmosphere here just feels different,” she said.
Elevate Academy Nampa
Salvador Soto never thought he would be a teacher.
He worked at a restaurant in Caldwell for 16 years. But five years ago he made the switch to education. Now he’s a culinary instructor at Elevate Academy Nampa.
“My drive and what I’ve learned — I’m teaching these guys,” Soto said.
That’s the path of many of the instructors at Elevate Academy. They took their experience in their respective industries and now impart that knowledge on the youth. The school provides eight paths for career and technical education: construction, HVAC, welding, culinary, business, computer applications, criminal justice and medical arts.
Just as students at Idaho Arts mixed paint to learn about math ratios, students at Elevate can learn about fractions by doubling or halving a recipe in Soto’s kitchen, or learn about angles when cutting lumber or bending sheet metal.
“They should never be asking, where am I ever going to use this?” Charter Administrator Colton Sweesy said. “Because they’re seeing the field that they’re using that skill.”
Mollee Winker, a junior, wants to graduate as a certified nursing assistant and then join the military. She’s been learning about medical terminology and definitions.
“Like, if I was talking to another doctor, how would I put it in perspective?” Winker said.
Each trade classroom has equipment that one would see in the industry. The medical room has hospital beds and IV bags. HVAC students use hand seamers to shape sheet metal. Construction students use circular saws and belt sanders. Criminal justice students can practice on a driving simulator.
But students also get the general education courses they need to graduate in Idaho.
Social studies teacher Ellie Elli asked students to review facts about the Roman Empire while they played “trashketball.”
“What were the wealthy Roman class called?” Elli said. “Starts with a P.”
“Patricians,” the students responded.Classrooms in the middle school hallway have garage doors that can roll up to let students study together at tables with a variety of stools and chairs.
“They’ll open up the garages, and the friends can collide with each other as long as they’re still doing their work,” Winker said.
Kayla Green, the mother of two Elevate students, said the school helped her daughter blossom. Her kids attended a district school, but they switched to homeschooling during the COVID pandemic. Then a friend recommended Elevate.
“It’s been the best decision so far,” Green said.
