School’S Out For Proposed Sandpoint Charter Lack Of Location, Money Ends Dream For Academy Founders

Sandpoint’s Da Vinci Charter Academy is dead.

Founders of the proposed school, which was intended to feature academic courses for college-bound students with a blend of arts and humanities, have scrapped the idea because they have no location and not enough money.

“A lot of people have come up to us and expressed regret,” head organizer John Sarchio said Thursday. “They are kicking themselves that they didn’t get more involved.”

The charter attempt didn’t die for lack of trying, said Sarchio, who quit his job as academic dean at Rocky Mountain Academy to breathe life into what would have been Idaho’s ninth charter school.

A year later, Da Vinci, with state and school board approval, still didn’t have a building or enough cash to hire teachers for the first class of ninth- and 10th-graders.

And in pre-enrollment, only 24 students had signed up, not the expected 60 pupils.

“The biggest problem I saw was the Catch-22,” Sarchio said. “You couldn’t have a building if you didn’t have a charter, and you couldn’t get a charter without a building.”

Sarchio and the eight-member Da Vinci board officially informed the Lake Pend Oreille School District on June 6 of their decision to give up on the school.

Sarchio said he is unsure whether anyone else will pursue the charter.

School district Superintendent Roy Rummler said someone else could use the Da Vinci concept but would have to go through the approval process again.

Last week, Sarchio became principal of the Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy.

Five Bonner County students attend the Coeur d’Alene charter school, which just completed its first year.

Approved by the Idaho Legislature in 1998, charter schools are independent public schools that take a different approach to education.

There also are two charter schools in Moscow, Idaho.

Da Vinci would have opened this fall, giving Bonner County students an academic alternative focusing on college and life preparatory skills. To complement the curricula, the school would have encouraged volunteerism and offered internships at local businesses.

School trustees approved the charter in March.

Rummler said that when the Legislature approved charter schools, it added another responsibility for districts. Trustees spent more than 100 hours on the Da Vinci project, Rummler said.

“To evaluate it, you’d have to look at the kids who have gone there,” Rummler said about the unknown benefits of starting a charter school in Bonner County.

He added that public education is a good buy and charter schools cost taxpayers extra money.

Sarchio estimated the school needed $150,000 to supplement the state’s contribution.

“We just couldn’t get that support,” he said.