Later this month, the Charter School of Morgan Hill will come
before the School Board as it turns five – at least, the school
’s charter does and will need to be renewed by the board. The
application for renewal will be on the board’s Nov. 22 agenda.
Five years after opening, Morgan Hill’s Charter School proves its unique approach to education brings results
Later this month, the Charter School of Morgan Hill will come before the School Board as it turns five – at least, the school’s charter does and will need to be renewed by the board.
The application for renewal will be on the board’s Nov. 22 agenda.
“We’ve been working on getting everything together for that, and I think we’re ready,” said Principal Page Cisewski, who was one of the school’s founders. “It’s hard to believe it has been five years.”
The schools organizers began talking long before they got together officially in February 2000 to prepare the initial charter. Parents, educators and community members were involved, and they all rolled up their sleeves, prepared to work hard and overcome obstacles.
The school actually opened in August 2001, with nearly 200 students in three separate locations. Once renovations were complete on the space in the Albertson’s shopping center, the school moved into what is now the Dollar Tree store. In 2003, the school moved onto the campus of the former Encinal Elementary on Monterey Highway north of Morgan Hill near Bailey Avenue. Enrollment has increased each year, and last year a middle school program was added.
Fifty district students enrolled in the Charter School this year.
With an emphasis on project-based learning, the school is an alternative to “traditional” public education, but is still very much a public school, said CSMH Principal Paige Cisewski.
“A lot of our learning takes place during problem solving,” she said. “And we are not a textbook-based school. We do use them, but our emphasis is on getting the students working with different methods.”
CSMH offers its 427 students in kindergarten through grade five music and art once a week. Middle school students change classes, though they have longer periods and not every class every day, a kind of block-scheduling.
The structure is not for every child, Cisewski acknowledges, just as “traditional” education is not for every child.
“Our staff has really worked hard together to not only make sure our students were being taught the standards as required by the state but also to bring their education to life, to create a stimulating educational experience,” she said. “Our students raise chickens, they tend gardens; our kindergarten students each planted an apple tree, so now we have an orchard for them to tend as they and the trees grow over the years.”
Learning by experience – or, as Cisewski says, learning by problem-solving – is a big part of the curriculum.
“With the chickens, for example: some kind of creature was getting in their enclosure, and we lost some chicks,” she said. “The kids had to find a way to keep their chickens safe.”
The arts are a regular part of school curriculum as music and art are taught at all grade levels. All students also study Spanish and take PE.
“This year, our sports program really took off,” said Cisewski. “We have flag football, volleyball, basketball soccer. And for our middle school students, we’re offering a variety of enrichment choices, including a jazz band, a marketing class, art, and we have a newspaper and yearbook group.”
When the school’s charter came before the School Board for approval in 2000, there were concerns among trustees and in the community not only about students leaving other district schools to attend the new school, but also whether the students at the new schools would be able to perform well on the annual state testing.
Testing fears were soon allayed.
The school’s first Academic Performance Index (API) score was 792, just 8 points shy of the state’s goal of 800. They following year, in the 2002-2003 school year, they reached 821. Last year, they jumped to 831.
“I can’t believe how far we’ve come,” said Cisewski. “We have certainly learned a lot during these years. And like our students, we have not only learned from doing things right, we’ve also learned a lot from making mistakes.”
Marilyn Dubil covers education and law enforcement for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106 ext. 202 or at md****@*************es.com.
