Two charter schools find benefits in the buddy system
The Hernando middle school could feed the Citrus high school program, giving Hernando students a high school option and Citrus a full load of students.
By BARBARA BEHRENDT
Published February 28, 2004
CRYSTAL RIVER - Side by side, the middle school students and the high school students cast their nets into the chilly water at Fort Island Gulf Beach.
What they found in the gulf was a host of aquatic creepy crawlies - and a common ground that could tie Citrus County's only charter school to Hernando County's only charter school sometime in the future.
Two groups of students from Hernando's Gulf Coast Academy of Science and Technology visited the staff and students of Citrus County Academy of Environmental Science on Thursday and Friday, a first baby step toward a possible partnership that officials at each school say would benefit students and the schools.
The students measured the beach, collected and studied sea life and learned the basics of Canoeing 101 as just a sampling of the opportunities available at the Citrus school.
Gulf Coast Academy is in its first year, serving middle school students in a unique program that combines an intensive science and technology curriculum along with other subjects and in-the-field experiences that expose students to hands-on lessons, team-building activities and service work in the community.
The Academy of Environmental Science is in its fifth year. High school sophomores, juniors and seniors spend half of each year in a program focused on science, English and in-the-field environmental experiences. The school's unique location, perched in a stilt condominium building at the edge of the Salt River miles west of U.S. 19 and surrounded by sawgrass, provides ample outdoor classroom opportunities.
When board members from each of the schools met at a conference in Orlando several months ago, they got to talking about their charters. Soon they discovered that the two schools might be able to combine some efforts in mutually beneficial ways.
After the student visits this week, the directors of each school said they hope this introduction might someday build into a seamless educational program that would serve students interested in an environmental-centered education from middle school through graduation.
Along the way, a number of issues would have to be worked out, but neither Joseph Gatti, co-director and co-founder at Gulf Coast Academy, nor Lisa Merritt, director and teacher at the Academy of Environmental Science, saw any of those as insurmountable.
One issue: how to deal with ninth-graders, since neither program currently offers a ninth grade component. Another: how to work out a feasible curriculum for Hernando high school students at the Citrus academy, since most Citrus students only attend the academy for half a year. The other half of the year they attend their home high school for other subjects such as math and social studies.
Merritt said some of the solutions might come along as part of her school's efforts to expand in the coming years anyway. "We've wanted to move toward being full time, and we should be there in a couple of years."
For the Hernando students, the obvious benefit would be the chance to continue their science and environmentally focused training all the way through high school. Citrus academy students also have said they would like to visit the Hernando school, possibly to work with the youngsters there.
A big benefit for the Citrus academy is another pool of potential students. While the school's numbers have steadily climbed, they are not full, and more students means more state funding. This year there were 46 students attending the charter the first semester and 47 this semester. The school's capacity is about 110.
On the flip side, the Gulf Coast Academy already has waiting lists for slots in its 110-student school.
One issue that should not present a problem for Gulf Coast Academy is transportation. The charter school has its own bus, and supportive parents already have expressed a willingness to carpool students up to Crystal River if an agreement is worked out, Gatti said.
The reaction from students also has been positive. Gatti said the written reports he read from the visit were glowing. Merritt said one of the Hernando students was amazed because he said, "Everyone here has smiles."
Carl Hansen, chairman of the board for the Citrus academy, said the extra value added is that the older and younger students learn from working together. Another plus is that the Citrus academy is directly across the road from the Citrus County Marine Science Station, a school district-owned facility that for decades has provided hands-on environmental education programs that every Citrus County fourth-and seventh-grade public school student attends.
More partnerships with that facility are also possible, Hansen said. He said he could see real benefits if a partnership could be worked out.
"More students means better funding and right now we're an awfully lean organization," Hansen said.
Gatti said he also was interested in the close ties that the Citrus charter has with environmental agencies in the area, ranging from the state Division of Forestry to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Citrus academy students even intern with some of those agencies as part of their program.
"I'm just astonished that they don't have people beating down their door," Gatti said of the Citrus academy's population.
He visited the school recently and was impressed with what it had to offer, and after this week's successful student visits, he said he hopes to see much more interaction.
"It's certainly the beginning of a great relationship," he said.
