Great Falls Public Schools has selected Morningside Elementary as the site of their new CORE School.

The school board unanimously approved staff’s plan to submit an application to the Montana Board of Public Education to create a public charter school under a new state law.

The board voted during their Oct. 23 meeting to allow staff to submit the application which is due by Nov. 1.

The state has indicated they’ll notify the district if they’ve been approved in January, according to assistant superintendents Jackie Mainwaring and Heather Hoyer.

GFPS approves plan for new public charter school

Morningside is located at  4119 7th Ave. N. and according to the school website, has a total enrollment of 201; with 23 teachers and a total staff of 45.

CORE School is planned to start in the fall of 2024 and the district has scheduled informational sessions for Morningside families at the school on at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 7 and 5:30 p.m. Nov. 14.

“One reason Morningside was selected is because space exists to invite other students from around the city and region to attend,” according to GFPS.

In early 2024, the district will hold informational sessions for families who live outside of the Morningside attendance area who are considering enrollment in the CORE School for the upcoming academic year.

GFPS hosting info sessions on proposed magnet school

Starting Nov. 3, the district will open applications for members of the public interested in joining the CORE School steering committee, which will guide the vision and implementation of the CORE School approach. The committee will report to the school board, which will remain the governing body for the school even if it is granted public charter school status.

The state law creating the public charter school option requires the committee and sets specification for membership.

Even if the district isn’t approved as a public charter school, district staff are moving forward with their plan to turn one existing elementary school to turn into CORE School in an effort to address teacher recruitment and retention.

CORE School will essentially be a learning laboratory and will be staffed by teachers with masters degrees who go through a separate selection process and will also be hired as adjunct staff for the University of Montana-Western’s education program.

They’ll go through an application process and be paired with student teachers from Western’s program or other university education programs.

The student teachers from university programs will be hired by the district as paraeducators or teacher aides, which have also been in short supply, while their completing their degree program in an immersive educational setting.

GFPS teachers who aren’t selected for the CORE School will be able to move to another school under the existing process in their collective bargaining agreement, according to district administrators.

District officials said current teachers would not lose their jobs under the proposal.

GFPS considering creating magnet public charter school

Current students at the selected school will have the option to stay, but for those that want to leave, they could be moved to a nearby school or go through the district’s existing permissive transfer process.

The classrooms will be filled to state capacity and will use a lottery system to fill any available elementary student slots at the lab school, district officials said.

Hoyer said the committee will be part of selecting the principal for the CORE School, which they hope to have completed before the winter holiday break.

In January, the district plans to start the selection process for teachers, Mainwaring said.

GFPS gives summer school report to board

The CORE School would open in the fall of 2024 with the UM-Western students coming that spring, according to GFPS.

Staff presented their proposal to the board earlier in October and has held two public informational sessions about the plan. Board members, district staff and the public have been able to asked questions and Hoyer and Mainwaring said once those questions are answered, people have been generally supportive of the plan.

Mainwaring said there’s been some misconceptions about what a public charter school is. Under the new state law allowing the creation of public charter schools, public money stays with public schools with the advisory committee and school board retaining oversight.

“That’s one of the unique things in the law about public charter schools, that they’re still governed by elected officials,” Hoyer said.

Hoyer said that there’s been some misconceptions about CORE School that go back to people’s thoughts on what charter schools are. She said the public charter school is not for certain students and will be designed to represent GFPS and the neighborhood its in demographically. There’s no grade point average or parent involvement criteria beyond any regular GFPS elementary school for the CORE School students, she said.

The CORE School will also be funded through the district’s existing budget and won’t affect the local schools tax levies, Hoyer and Mainwaring said.

If approved as a public charter school, it will get slightly more from the state than the standard base funding that’s determined by enrollment, which could free up some general fund dollars for other district needs, Mainwaring said.

UM-Western received a $400,000 grant through the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education for the CORE School to cover tuition for the college students in the program so when they graduate from their condensed three-year program, they’ll be debt free, Estee Aiken, an education professor at Western told the GFPS board during their Oct. 9 meeting.

The public charter schools also have some flexibility to accept private funding, which could offset some costs or allow for some enhancements, GFPS officials said.