It Isn’t About the Building
By Allen Raymond, Publisher, and Patricia Broderick, Editorial Director

There are no classroom closets. Teachers don't have a lounge. Playground space for the 214 students is at a premium. The school's classrooms were originally racquetball courts in a former athletic club – mile-high ceilings, but not terribly wide.

Who in the world, you might ask, would want to teach in that situation?

Actually, every teacher presently at the ANSER Public Charter School in Boise, ID, wants to stay right where she or he is. The operative comment was, "I couldn't imagine teaching anywhere else."

What makes it such a teacher's Utopia? Teaching K-8 spent a delightful time with principal Dr. Suzanne Gregg and her teachers finding the many answers to that question.

ANSER (always in capital letters when referring to the school, and more on that name in a moment) came on the scene in downtown Boise in 1999. Founded by a group of parents, public school educators and Boise State University faculty, the school is dedicated to "cultivating student knowledge, skills and understanding necessary for success in the 21st century."

By the numbers. ANSER was the second charter school to be launched in Idaho (there are now 24 throughout the state). The name of the school is Latin for "goose," a bird with great learning capacity, social skills, stamina and health, a bird that flies in formation with other geese, helping all of them fly faster and farther than they could alone. What an appropriate name for a school.

The school was small in the beginning, with one kindergarten class, plus four multi-age classes (two were for grades one, two and three; the other two were for grades four, five and six).

Tweaking the numbers. Each year, as the school grew and children moved up a grade, the multi-age aspect was tweaked. Today (the school is in its seventh year), the multi-age approach continues (except in kindergarten), with one kindergarten, two 1/2 classes, two 3/4 classes, two 5/6 classes, three 7/8 classes (eighth grade was added in 2005).

The school is small but growing with a waiting list of anywhere from 100 to 200 students who, each year, clamor to get in – which they can only do through a state-mandated lottery, or because a sibling already attends the school.

And, because "test scores" are the way the world runs these days, it seems appropriate to look at how well the kids at ANSER are doing academically. "In the most recent Idaho Standard Achievement Tests," a report from the school says, "94% of ANSER students scored at the advanced or proficient levels in reading, and 86% in math."

But, you're probably asking, "What about those wonderful little fourth graders being tested all over the country?" The answer, and you may not believe this, is that ANSER's fourth graders "scored 100% proficient/advanced in reading and 100% proficient/advanced in math."

So, where's the magic? It isn't magic – it's people. Wonderful teachers who shoehorn themselves and their kids into abandoned racquetball courts and, well, work their magic.

It's a school where, remarkably, three of the 11 educators on the staff (27% of them) are National Board Certified Teachers, while at the national level, only 3% of all elementary school teachers are National Board Certified.

It's a school where teachers are "crew leaders," students are "crew" (as opposed to "passengers; a significant distinction) and crews and crew leaders are on a first-name basis.

It's a school where character education is paramount and everyone – parents, staff, students – has adopted the core values of Respect, Integrity, Courage, Compassion and Discipline, and Responsibility.

It's a school where, as the school's fund-raising booklet says, "Because of the school's culture, virtually no incidents of violence occur and few incidents of bullying occur."

Community meetings. At ANSER, every day starts with a community meeting in each classroom. Once a week, on Wednesdays, the whole school meets. All of these meetings are entirely run by the kids, with the children in each class deciding what they'll present at each meeting.

We believe Principal Suzanne Gregg, captures the commitment of everyone in the school when she says, "I need to be with kids; I need to be focused on education. That's my passion and my strength."

About now, however, you're undoubtedly beginning to realize there must be more to this remarkable institution than meets the eye, and of course you're right. It's not just a school.

The "driver." What drives the success of the school is not only the people, vitally important as they are; it is also the school's adoption of Expeditionary Learning – Outward Bound.

In Expeditionary Learning schools, students spend most of their day engaged in "learning expeditions," which are hands-on, three- to seven-month-long studies of a single topic, such as water quality, the civil rights movement or the scientific revolution.

At ANSER, these expeditions might be "Birds" or "Boise River: Lifeblood of our Community" or "Apartheid in Africa" or "European Governmental Structures." Teachers at ANSER work in teams to design their own learning expeditions that align with district and state standards.

The basis of it all. Project learning, of course, is the basis for instruction at ANSER, and each child's portfolio (all kids create them) documents the learning that takes place.

As Dr. Gregg explains it, "Their portfolio reflections must be based on state standards and utilize Expeditionary Learning design principles. Many entries in the portfolios," she added, "include the children's reflections on how the project has changed them as a person.

"Cooperative learning," she continued, "as reflected in the projects the students undertake, reveals to each of them what it means to be a person of strong character.

"Also," she pointed out, "as they work with others in a group, they learn how to deal with conflict, how to accept others' ideas and how to decide on something together. This [approach] is interwoven into everything we do at ANSER."

Employing a "Best Practices" approach, the school's Community Based Curriculum (CBC) and Service Learning are so important at ANSER that the school has a CBC Director (Jenny Willison) and an assistant (Elizabeth Day).

Because the school has such caring, committed and competent teachers, it's obvious the environment would be a godsend for children with special needs. And it is. Between 14-18% of ANSER's children have special needs, and all are mainstreamed, with phenomenal success.

We began this too-brief profile of ANSER with an inference it was a "teacher's Utopia." The dictionary defines Utopia as a location "having a perfect political and social system."

Well, that fits ANSER.

"A place, state or situation of ideal perfection; an ideally perfect social order."

That fits, too.

Want to learn more? Visit websites below (and you'll be glad you did; we guarantee it).

---

Website contacts:

1. ANSER Charter School: www.anser-charter-school.org


2. Expeditionary Learning–Outward Bound: www.elob.org


3. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards: www.nbpts.org