Charter schools are successful and worth saving

One year ago, I sat in the basement of the former St. Patrick’s School on Spokane’s North Side and heard an enthusiastic educator lay out a vision. The occasion was parent information night at Spokane International Academy.

Travis Franklin, co-founder and head of school at SIA, told the parents that night about how SIA would be a different kind of school: Cambridge Curriculum, immersive Spanish language study for all grades, science and the arts, and educating young people on how to become good citizens and leaders.

Mr. Franklin has worked passionately to start the free public school. He toured other charter schools, adopted best practices and worked with local and state educational leaders to create an intentional, innovative learning environment. Along with Pride Prep, the school was chartered by Spokane Public Schools.

A building that sat empty a year ago, waiting for a new life, is buzzing. Every morning at 7:45, SIA students flow into the lunch room to start their day. My daughter, a kindergartner, is one of them. She runs toward the door.

As another enrollment lottery approaches and the Legislature ponders the best way to preserve charter schools, Mr. Franklin and the SIA staff have delivered on the promises they made with impressive results:

At the beginning of the year, only 2 percent of our kindergarten and first-grade students were on track to be at or above grade level by year’s end. After just one-third of the year, that figure was at more than 60 percent. In that same time, our first-graders saw an average growth in math aptitude of one school year.

The sixth-graders started the year with a field trip to Olympic National Park, launched a student council and the first-year math team qualified for state. They’ve also learned firsthand about democracy, traveling to Olympia to fight for the future of their school in the Legislature.

Their passion has inspired us to do the same. We’ve held rallies. We’ve reached out to our local legislators, several of whom toured the school and sponsored bills aiming to remedy the state Supreme Court ruling that overturned the charter law. I found myself in front of a panel of legislators last month, seated next to a supportive official from Spokane Public Schools, urging the Legislature to come up with a fix.

We haven’t discussed the legal and political chaos with our daughter. She’s just 6 years old, and all she knows is that she loves going to SIA every day to grow and learn. She and her SIA classmates are thriving; some of them struggled elsewhere.

The success of SIA, Pride Prep and all of the state’s charter schools proves that educational choice and innovation are key to helping kids excel. They are worth saving. The vision is a reality and our families are expectant and hopeful about our children’s futures.

Jeff Bunch is a former writer and editor at The Spokesman-Review.