Charter support program helps school leaders right the ship

Emma Epperly, Idaho EdNews.org

BLACKFOOT (Idaho EdNews.org) — When Craig Gerard took a teaching job in the middle school at Blackfoot Charter in 2017, he never could have imagined that just three years later he would become the school’s executive director. 

The last five years for Gerard have been a lesson in stepping into the unknown, often alone.

“There are still things that I discover today that I didn’t realize that I need to be doing,” Gerard said. “There’s really not a great handbook for an administrator in this position.” 

So when the Idaho Department of Education and the Idaho Public Charter School Commission created a program to support struggling charter schools earlier this year, Gerard was one of the first to sign up. 

The program connects charter leaders with mentors and resources across the state and provides funding to buy curriculum or complete ongoing projects. 

The program has “really given me access to a lot of folks throughout the state that we can just share our experience, our knowledge, our ideas,” Gerard said. “So when I run into a problem I kind of have a team that I can tap into now for a wealth of knowledge beyond my own.” 

The Increased Charter Support Program is at the halfway point during its pilot year with statewide leaders hopeful they will get funding to continue. 

Proactively supporting charters

Last year, Gov. Brad Little signed the Accelerated Public Charter Schools Act, which overhauled decades-old regulation on charter schools. 

The law also required charter schools to be allowed to join the state’s Building Capacity Program for struggling schools and came with just over $300,000 in one-time funding. 

Charter schools were already allowed into the Building Capacity Program and the IDE wanted to create a charter specific support, said Rachel Burk, parent engagement and school choice coordinator with IDE. 

“That’s how it initially came to fruition,” Burk said. 

Burk hoped schools with academic scores just above the requirements for the Building Capacity Program would voluntarily join the new charter support program. 

The state hired longtime educator and charter school founder Mary Gervase to run the program and four schools joined: 

Gervase likens schools in the program to a house with a leaky roof. 

“It’s best to repair it as early as possible…before there’s damage,” Gervase said. “The longer you wait, the harder it is to turn around.” 

School administrators and trustees reflected on their strengths and weakness in four areas: leadership, effective teaching practices, positive school culture and parent involvement. 

Then leaders made a plan to address their weak areas. The first cohort is five months into implementing those improvement plans. Most of those plans involved coaching and training for school administrators and school board members. 

“We wanted to create high impact changes in a short amount of time that would eventually lead to student success,” Burk said. “If we started at the top with the governance and went down to the administration, we would have a long term impact.” 

Better leadership, better outcomes

At Blackfoot Charter the program came during a difficult period, Gerard said. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the 25-year-old school has struggled. 

While the school continues to enroll more than 430 students grades K-8, leadership turnover has led to instability. 

Gerard had just begun his masters in administration at Idaho State University when former administrators asked him to take over as the middle school principal during the 2018-19 school year. The following year he obtained an alternative administrator certificate to take over as executive director. 

His first year on the job, the pandemic upended everything. 

While he had support from administrator networks, it can be hard to get out of the day-to-day problem whack-a-mole to focus on long term planning, he said. 

“It’s really hard to carve out time as an administrator,” Gerard said. 

The building charter support program helped him find that time and more resources to push projects that had been in the works for years over the finish line. 

The school implemented a new intervention model, he said and so far Blackfoot Charter has been allotted just over $42,000 for curriculum and training. 

Combined with Gervase’s expertise, Gerard said things are getting done. 

“She has been extremely active in removing some of the hurdles that are there for all the schools in the program,” Gerard said. 

Gervase said a huge benefit of the program is getting charter leaders connected with existing resources. 

“It seems that oftentimes charter school leaders are often inexperienced,” Gervase said. “If you’re struggling it’s hard to know where to go… it’s just widening their sphere of experts to turn to.”

Each charter is unique, Gervase noted, making an individualized approach key. 

A rural school with unique struggles

Mountain Community School in McCall is located at a ski resort, where students spend significant time outdoors.

Jenny Schon, who co-founded the school in 2021, took on the role of administrator for the first time this year and struggled with being the only charter in the area.

“It’s easy to think that I need to do it on all my own,” Schon said. 

The school has struggled academically with four conditions placed on the renewal of its charter last week.

The financial support for the school that serves 72 students in grades K-8 has been huge, Schon said. 

The nearly $30,000 goes a long way in a small school, she said. They bought curriculum, hired mentors for their special ed teacher, office manager and Schon herself. 

Not all the schools benefited in the same way. Rolling Hills decided the best thing for students would be to merge with nearby North Star Public Charter School. 

Gervase and Burk hope the program will receive funding for a second year, both to continue to support the first cohort of schools and to bring on a new cohort. 

Burk noted that it’s difficult to show the fruit of the program after just one year of data. For Gervase, the ultimate goal would be to set up supports for charters even earlier. 

Gervase hopes the commission would eventually consider assigning mentors to schools as they receive their charter to ensure problems don’t develop in the early years. 

“They have this ideal of what they’re going to create and then the reality hits and everything is coming at them so quickly,” Gervase said. “Why wouldn’t we want to invest at the get-go?”

This article was originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on March 9, 2025.