For decades, Idaho charter schools and local districts have been rivals, competing for students, teachers and state dollars. 

But a shift is happening.

A number of districts are partnering with a charter by becoming their authorizer instead of leaving the oversight task to the state. 

For Hollister and Lava Hot Springs, school districts they are a part of are headquartered in nearby towns and were at risk of closing outlying elementary schools because of drops in enrollment. So the community came together to launch charter schools to serve families looking for other options. Both charters are set to open next fall. 

Of the 78 charter schools in Idaho, 19 are authorized by a local district. The rest are authorized by the Idaho Public Charter School Commission. 

Elevate Academy, a network of charters, has partnered with local districts in recent years first in Bonneville and now Twin Falls to open schools to meet at-risk students’ needs. 

“There’s not a lot of incentive for districts to be authorizers for a charter,” said Twin Falls Superintendent Brady Dickinson. “You know charters are competing for the same students that districts are.” 

But when Elevate approached the district, it became clear that its career and technical education programs are unique. 

“Looking at it through the lens of what’s best for kids, it will provide a great opportunity for those kids that it’s a good fit for,” Dickinson said. 

Rural schools “heart of the community”

Julie Koyle is a fourth generation Hollister resident. 

The town of just under 300 people is in Twin Falls County. At the heart of the town is the 1912 school building, which became part of the Filer School District in the 1940s. 

“Over the years the Filer School District has always had the discussion of possibly closing the school down,” Koyle said. 

About three years ago, Koyle was a Filer trustee and one of the votes against closing the school in favor of looking outside of the box to find a long-term solution to keep a school in the community. 

Koyle has a degree in accounting and runs a Twin Falls flooring business with her husband. When she became a parent, Koyle also became heavily involved in her children’s’ schools, at one point working as a special education paraeducator. 

She stepped down from the Filer School Board and went “full steam ahead” into the idea of turning Hollister Elementary School into a charter.

“The Filer school district has been so willing to work with us,” she said. “They see the need for the school here in Hollister for these young kids to not be bussed so far.”

Filer Superintendent Kelli Schroeder said the charter plan has been a “win-win” for the district and kids.

“It has just been seamless for us,” Schroeder said of starting the transition.

Koyle worked with the non-profit Bluum and the J.A. Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation to help launch Hollister Charter School. The school received $800,000 in federal grants, Bluum announced last week. 

She established a community charter advisory committee that put together a vision of a community-based school that focuses on producing civically minded students with an understanding of their community and its agricultural roots. 

This school year has served as a transition year with Koyle as executive director and Troy Parton as head teacher working with Filer employees to get their feet wet. The school will full transition to a charter for the 2025-26 school year. 

Currently, Hollister Elementary has 53 students with Koyle hoping to hit about 70 to 75 students. Next year, the charter will add sixth grade but doesn’t plan to grow beyond K-6, other than potentially adding a pre-k program, she said. The school will have four classrooms, kindergarten, two 1-3 grade rooms, and a 4-6 grade room. 

The combined classes allow for even class sizes and fewer teachers for the small school, Koyle said. Students will learn in small groups. 

Most of the current teachers are staying on with the charter, Koyle said, but those who don’t want to move to the charter can stay with the Filer School District. The district is gifting the Hollister Elementary building to the town of Hollister, which will then lease the building for a small sum to the charter. The gift made sense, Schroeder said, because the town originally gifted the building to Filer when the district consolidated decades ago.

“We just want to make sure we’re providing for our community,” Koyle said. 

Saving a rural school by becoming a charter is a rather new experiment in Idaho, Koyle noted. Lava Hot Springs is set to do the same next fall with the opening of Lava Hot Springs Academy, under similar circumstances. 

There the school will follow a discovery-based educational model and offer grades, K-6, according to the Idaho State Journal. The school is authorized through the Marsh Valley School District. 

Kolleen DeGraff, director of the charter, said the educational model is the perfect fit for the recreation based community.

“The town just really rallied around it,” DeGraff said.

The school had lost students due to the lack of investment from the school district, DeGraff said but the charter already has 60 students set for next year and hopes to get up to 75. They too are renting the school building at a low cost from Marsh Valley, who agreed to fund some building upkeep.

Elevate meets unique need

Twin Falls will be home to the second locally authorized Elevate Academy in the state starting in 2026. Elevate has four schools statewide, three of which are authorized by the commission and one in Idaho Falls authorized by Bonneville School District. 

The schools serve at-risk students in grades 6-12, teaching career and technical programs. 

“I think when you can partner with a district, students get the most opportunities,” said Elevate’s Chief Visionary Officer Monica White. 

Twin Falls is home to a huge agricultural industry as well as Clif Bar and Chobani. The goal is that Elevate students will be prepared to work in those industries. 

“The beautiful thing in Twin in our mind is the robust community college they have there,” White said, referring to the College of Southern Idaho. 

While working with the district is exciting, White noted she has never met a parent who asked who their authorizer is. 

“It’s our goal to work with every school district whether they authorize us or not,” White said. 

Superintendent Dickinson agreed, noting Elevate augments what the district is already doing. Twin Falls plans to continue its alternative high school and CTE programs, noting many students still need the flexibility of an alternative high school while wanting to continue traditional classes. 

“I think there’s still a need for both,” he said.

Editor’s note: Idaho Education News and Bluum both receive funding from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation.