Downtown charter school proposed

The state of Iowa has only eight charter schools. Teacher Gretchen Price would like No. 9 to be in downtown Cedar Rapids.

“It feels like the right time and place, sort of a perfect storm,” she said.

Price is leader of a group of local educators attempting to create the Downtown School, a charter school with innovative curriculum and a community focus.

Price is on leave from the Johnson School of the Arts in Cedar Rapids to pursue a doctorate in the language, literacy and culture program at the University of Iowa. She got her start teaching at a public school in the Bronx of New York, where 99 percent of the student population was in the free and reduced-lunch program.

Having a charter school would allow the district to break with what Price calls outdated models of teaching based in 19th-century Industrial Revolution practices. She was encouraged that the community is ready for a new approach after attending a Jan. 18 forum on education innovation at the Grant Wood Area Education Agency.

“They were expecting 70 people, and 225 showed up,” Price said. “I think that speaks volumes about the direction we're headed and the direction people want to head.”

Price describes her teaching model as inquiry-based, meaning students work on critical-thinking problems, as opposed to memorization and rote learning.

“The teacher acts more like a facilitator than someone who stands in front of the room and provides information,” she said.

The Downtown School is applying for an innovation zone consortium charter, a recent addition to Iowa's charter school law.

The consortium would be open to students from Cedar Rapids and Linn-Mar school districts. The Grant Wood AEA also would be a member. The boards of all members of the consortium would have to approve the charter application before it could be considered by the state Department of Education, said department spokesman Phil Roeder.

This state Board of Education just approved the guidelines for innovation zone schools in November, and none currently exists in Iowa.

The application to form such a school is not even available yet; it's still under development, Roeder said. An application would need to be submitted by Dec. 15 for the school to open by Price's goal of August 2012.

The school currently has no funding, either. Price said she'll spend the spring and summer applying for grants from the federal Department of Education. President Barack Obama has encouraged charter schools as a method of school reform.

So far, Price has met with Linn-Mar Superintendent Katie Mulholland regarding the project and has a meeting scheduled with Cedar Rapids Superintendent Dave Benson.

Benson did not want to comment on the school itself but said he had doubts whether the project met the proper legal standards.

“There's pretty stringent requirements in the Iowa code regarding how these schools operate and are set up and what's required for them to have,” Benson said. “What I've seen would not meet the intent of the code.”

Officials at Linn-Mar schools said they did not want to comment on the school at its current stage of development.

The location Price's group has in mind at 500 Third Ave. SE currently serves as offices for The Gazette. Price said the location was ideal because of its proximity to downtown, as well as cultural institutions such as the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art and the future main branch of the Cedar Rapids Public Library.

“I think a school in that area could be a huge part of the revitalization of downtown,” Price said.

SourceMedia Group, owners of The Gazette, sent out a request for proposals to developers for the sale and redevelopment of the downtown property, which houses the newspaper and KCRG-TV9, in September.

Cathy Terukina, vice president of adminstration, confirmed that Price met with company representatives regarding the proposed school, but no talk of the building's sale took place.

“We're certainly open to the idea, but we haven't had any specific discussions yet,” said Terukina.

To meet the requirements of the charter school law, the building would need to be purchased by one of the innovation zone members before submitting the charter school application, Roeder said