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School Board approves bringing Charter School into Mammoth High |
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Friday, 28 August 2009 |
By Diane Eagle
Mammoth Times Editor
After parents, teachers and other interested people expressed their heartfelt views, the School Board voted unanimously to dissolve the Charter School to bring it under the umbrella of Mammoth High School.
With that action Monday night, Mammoth High School assures Superintendent Frank Romero’s goal of creating alternate paths of education for students.
The Independent Study Center will become the nexus of a school that will enable all students to supplement their courses, provide two or three teachers to support independent instruction and offer support in the areas of math and science.
The idea, while growing privately for many months, took form Aug. 10 when local resident and parent Dan Dawson made a presentation to the School Board on behalf of himself and Mammoth Mountain CEO Rusty Gregory to institute the Independent Study Center and to fund it to the tune of $250,000 a year.
The impetus, according to Dawson and Gregory, was to stop the flow of families, children and talent out of Mammoth because of a perceived flawed school, and within 3-5 years create such a good school that people will want to move to the town.
“It’s less about quality than about options to pursue alternative learning tracks,” Gregory said yesterday.
In his comments at the Aug. 24 School Board meeting, Gregory mentioned using contributions from Diamond Partnerships to fund both the high school and Cerro Coso Community College.
Since 1991, the Diamond passes have been sold by the Mammoth Lakes Foundation to fund the college and culture in Mammoth. The diamond level of contributions have enabled the foundation to go from raw ground to buildings, to a community college campus and providing considerable scholarships.
So the concept of diluting their efforts by adding support for the high school to that for the college doesn’t immediately sit well with the Mammoth Lakes Foundation, according to Executive Director Evan Russell.
“We would have to make a significant change to the mission of the Mammoth Lakes Foundation, from college and cultural, to Mammoth High School,” Russell said.
But Gregory contends that education is a continuum and that at this moment in time the high school that requires attention.
“I’m very clear that this [high school] is our priority; we’re not bailing out on the college, but addressing the emergency at the high school,” Gregory said.
While this might come at a difficult time economically – Diamond partnership passes have decreased – Gregory believes it’s a matter of fund raising, that by making education the important thing, with both the college and the high school as beneficiaries of the Diamond pass, the number of donors will increase. “This increases the cause people care about, which is education,” Gregory said.
In other words, by raising more money, both educational systems benefit. |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 04 September 2009 )
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