Students leave ISTCS prepared for success!

The middle school educational program is designed to give students opportunities to impact their world. During middle school, students use knowledge and skills to solve problems, ask and answer complex questions, and create high-quality products. Students leave middle school as empowered, independent learners with the ability to impact their own environment and their own futures.   Meet some of our former students who are confidently making an impact in their world.

     How do three students with vastly different interests come together to win a state competition?  That is the question that I asked Aubree, Kayleigh, and Carter when I sat down to talk about their research, preparation, trip to Boise, and competition.  After some laughter and thought, they concluded that they learned to build on each other.  They learned to rely on each other’s strengths, add to each other’s responses, and push each other to improve.

     Twelve students from Idaho Science and Technology competed in the middle school division of We the People in Boise on January 25, 2019.  Aubree Christiansen, Kayleigh Adams, and Carter Jones won the award for top middle school unit in the state.  The question that they researched was why the founders believed that freedom of speech was so important.  When the team was asked to summarize their research for the last several months, they quoted Voltaire.  “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

     Aubree is a talented artist who enjoys sports. She would like to go into the medical field.  Kayleigh  is an avid reader and is the only bassoon player in the ISTCS band. She has a wide variety of potential career interests including kindergarten teacher, chemical engineer, and lawyer. Carter enjoys dirt biking, engineering and riding snowmobiles. He would like to be a pilot or an electrical engineer.  All of these students have earned at least two high school credits while in eighth grade, and many of them have earned between 10 – 15 high school credits.

Everyone has a story.

     I was recently asked to give a presentation on charter schools.  The request seemed simple:  help the audience understand the charter school movement, my school, and my personal tie to charter schools.  As I prepared to tell others about charter schools, I found the assignment to be far more complex than I anticipated.  You see, the charter school movement is tied to thousands of individual stories of parents, students, and educators who made an individual choice for a specific student.

     Traditional education has always been a social imperative, a decision made for communities and nations. John Dewey explained that “education is a social process; education is growth; education is not preparation for life but is life itself.”  The charter movement is the individual acknowledgement that universal education is absolutely essential; however, there are many ways to obtain that education and those receiving the education should have a voice in its delivery.  As John Meehan so aptly said, “Each child is unique.” 

     I frequently ask parents why they decided to send their child to Idaho Science and Technology Charter School (ISTCS). Almost every answer starts with the phrase, “I’m different than most parents, so don’t make educational or marketing decisions based on my story.”  The parent then tells the story of wanting something different for a child.  The stories vary widely, but the theme is always the same:  a parent chose to leave the comfort of what everyone else expected to pursue something better for a child.

     My story started at the same time Charter School laws were first established in Idaho.  My oldest child was 4 years old that year.  I had been looking at educational programs for him, and I was frustrated that I simply didn’t have options.  I didn’t have significant complaints about the public school system in my community, but I felt strongly that in a society where I could choose from twenty different brands of peanut butter to feed my child, I should have choices in what I considered the most important commodity I would choose for him, education.  Just as he was ready to enter kindergarten, a charter school announced that it was opening in my community.  I was elated!  Little did I know what a long road charter schools had in front of them.

     During that first year, my child’s school found itself unprepared to govern the educational process and within months had lost much of its board of directors and its principal. I had the educational background to help, so I stepped in to serve on the school board.  Over the years, as I saw more and more needs, I took on more roles in the charter school movement including teacher, curriculum director, assistant principal, principal, and eventually director.  I’ve now been involved in the movement for seventeen years.  Each of my children has attended both charter schools and traditional schools.  I believe strongly in the charter school movement, not because I believe that charter schools are inherently better than traditional schools but because I believe that education is the most important choice a parent can make for a child, and when there are no options, parents have no choices.

     I’m proud to say that ISTCS is successful in many ways.  I’m proud that our culture is considered safe and supportive.  I’m proud that parents acknowledge that.  I’m proud that ISTCS students are high achievers. I know that students are more than test scores, but I’m proud that our students have high test scores.  I’m proud that parent and student satisfaction is high.  Perhaps most of all, I’m proud that ISTCS students leave our school to become successful high school students, college students, and adults.  They impress me every day.

     My unique story ends with four empowered children, individuals who stubbornly advocate for themselves and their needs.  I wouldn’t have it any other way! In the process of helping to create and strengthen schools that allowed my children to develop their individual strengths, I developed mine.  Today, more than seventeen years after I first embarked on this journey, I can unequivocally say that parents and children deserve to have a voice in education.  Everyone deserves a choice. It is worth every hour that I have spent in this endeavor to know that children in my community have several quality choices in education. It is worth every hour to know that my school offers children quality education.

     During my daughter Emily’s first year away at college, she wrote about the turning point in her educational experience.  I am proud to say that she identified a moment at ISTCS as the moment that she found her voice.

When I started the seventh grade, I never would have imagined myself going into the medical field; it just seemed like too much for me. But during my seventh grade year, I had an incredible science teacher, Mrs. Jacobs. In her class, I had the opportunity to dissect a cow eyeball. On the first day of this two-day project, I was absolutely disgusted. The smell was gross, the feel of the eyeball was gross, and there was no way I was going to cut it open. The second day, however, I made the decision before walking into class that I would participate in the dissection, no matter how gross it may be. That’s exactly what I did. I walked in, took a deep breath, and I, myself, cut into the eyeball. It was pretty disgusting, and the smell was awful, but I actually found that I was more and more interested with every new discovery I made. It was fun. It was interesting. I wanted to know more. I wanted to do more. I can still remember how excited Mrs. Jacobs was that I was so interested. She said she will always remember that this was “the day that Emily got brave”. Later that day I couldn’t stop thinking about that experience. I was making comparisons, and drawing conclusions. I realized how amazing this could be for me if I made the decision to pursue my newfound interest. I realized that I could be a doctor, or a scientist, or a researcher. I could find a cure for something. I could be a great surgeon. I could save or improve lives. I remember this day as the day that I realized that I had a pure interest, which I later realized I was very talented in, that made me a part of something bigger than just me. I could make a difference. As a result, I began doing research, collecting knowledge, and trying to learn from other people’s discoveries and experiences. I began a quest for knowledge.

     We all make a difference, we all have a story, and each story is unique.  Charter schools allow individualism and uniqueness to flourish.