Most people don't seem to know that both of these schools are publicly funded schools although Fireweed operates under a charter which allows them some discretion in educational approach. Fireweed has been in portable buildings at Paul Banks Elementary without many amenities enjoyed at other public schools. They worked hard to find a home for their students and at first glance it's easy to be sympathetic.
Their story is only one part of the picture however, and the circumstances and fair trade offs that accompanied the start of the charter school seem to have been forgotten.
The questions of fairness here about the use of financial resources in public education are not just about having a decent building for a school. Equally as important if not more so, is the issue of how many students are in one classroom. For many parents and teachers, this is the heart and soul of the battle about Fireweed Academy. This academy was started as a response to the crowded classrooms at West Homer Elementary and all the difficulties that flow from that. Scheduling is more restrictive, teacher time with individual students is abbreviated, social and behavioral problems are elevated, mainstreaming the learning disabled and special needs students amplifies the difficulty, and the result is mind-numbing reduction in the quality of education.
Very intelligently, Fireweed Academy set up their charter with a basic premise of limiting classrooms to 16-17 students. Somehow they further avoided all the increased classroom complexities of serving learning disabled and Title 1 students. This is what they got in exchange for leaving the nice building behind.
Despite all the fancy words about alternative education approaches that were used to set up the Fireweed charter, all the benefits flow from the low pupil-teacher ratio and the lack of social complexities in the school. They have a fine professional staff but no specialized training in alternative education. They have a project-oriented approach to education that is only possible with the luxury of time, low numbers, and similarly situated students. They teach the way many West Homer Elementary teachers would teach with the same number and same kind of students per class as Fireweed does.
The state doesn't require any additional academic achievements for students in a Fireweed class of 16 than they do for West Homer Elementary students in a class of 30. As it turns out the average Fireweed students don't perform any better than the average West Homer Elementary students — so who do you think probably has a richer and more relaxed environment?
To offset some of the teaching disadvantages at West Homer Elementary, any spare rooms are used to provide space for extra sessions for learning disabled and Title 1 students, group tutoring and special projects activities. Since the Fireweed move will result in the loss of three classrooms, West Homer Elementary will have lost substantial opportunity to provide for the needs of their students. On what fairness basis should the request for combining these schools be decided?
Fireweed is not an alternative education school. It is a public school you can only get in by a lottery which also favors your siblings. It is a school designed to avoid all the bad things about large classrooms. It is what most every public school teacher would want and with the Fireweed move West Homer Elementary teachers will have an opportunity to teach right next door to such a classroom. Every teacher at WHE could sign an affidavit saying they will teach exactly like they do at Fireweed if classrooms were reduced to the same number and type of students — and yet the borough will not pay for it. Why not?
The pupil-teacher ratio has been the centerpiece of the national fight about education funding. The issue locally is about a fair deal for Fireweed parents who want a decent school facility and a fair deal for West Homer Elementary parents who believe the only real difference at Fireweed is the number of students per class.
The school board decision will be helpful in the short run to Fireweed Academy. In the long run it may not be — depending on people's concept of fairness.
Mike Heimbuch is a longtime Homer resident and a lifelong Alaskan.
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