Like all public charter schools, RFPCS must justify itself to the State of NH for the funding it receives and show that it is serving its community’s current demographics. In our area, K-8 enrollment is falling in every elementary school. But there is only one high school serving 5 sending towns. By expanding our programming to include grades 9-12, we demonstrate to the state that we are aware that the greatest need for alternative educational programing is at the secondary level and that we are willing and able to meet that need. We offer a high-quality educational experience to our current K-8 students and can do the same for adolescents. There are many teens in Mount Washington Valley who find it difficult to succeed in a traditional high school setting. We can provide them with a more comfortable environment to thrive. The RFPCS Board of Trustees is acting in the best interest of our organization as a whole, and in the best interest of our community, by pursuing this course of action.

Yes, because the plan is to start small and limit the number of high school students to one classroom. Based on the grades of our currently enrolled students for the 2022-23 school year, we plan to have a classroom for K-1 students and another for grades 2-4 in the downstairs space, and 2 separate classrooms upstairs, one for 5-8 grade students and the other for 9-12. Each of these classrooms will house about 15 students. We will not enroll more students at any grade level than their designated classroom has space for. Our building can easily accommodate 4 classrooms as it has in the past. When we have found a new, permanent school home we will be able to have larger classrooms for more students, or perhaps 2 classrooms each for every grouping of grade levels.

Yes. Since the high school is a new program and an extension of our original charter, we are once again eligible for federal start-up/expansion grants. These will be available for 3 years to cover the costs of everything from furniture to electronic equipment, to subscriptions for courses, to books and lab materials, to record keeping software, etc. With good planning, efficient implementation, and assessment of what is most useful, adjustment of expenditures will be judiciously informed each year. By the end of the 3rd year, we should have a solid foundation of HS infrastructure. We can then operate going forward with just our per pupil dollars, like we do now with our K-8 classes. Longevity of our high school program, we believe, will be best ensured by starting soon, but starting small, and then expanding a little each year when we have obtained our goal of a new location with a larger school building.

Based on the presence of other K-12 schools throughout NH, especially charter schools, the NH Education Department believes that it is. Certainly older, larger students can be intimidating to smaller, younger students and that is why our older students will be on a different floor than our younger students. They will not share the same bathrooms or lunchroom or outside time, much like how RFPCS currently operates. Conversely, we do hope to provide opportunities for supervised connections between upstairs and downstairs students. This is for the benefit of both, providing older students with the opportunity to nurture and be a mentor for younger students, and providing younger students with the opportunity to demonstrate their developing skills to “big kids” who they look up to as examples. The RFPCS HS committee is in close communication with another NH K-12 charter school who has very successfully implemented this model. Their success will inform and support our HS program addition.

No. Our high school enrollment will not depend on current students coming up from lower grades. It will offer a smaller, more personal educational venue to adolescents in our community who do not thrive in a large high school setting, or who are not able to do their best learning when they must change classes every 50 minutes. The Montessori style of learning was designed for introducing and incorporating responsible learning habits to students with varying degrees of ability and guiding them to become a cooperative, productive, respectful, cohesive group. Classroom community building must happen at the beginning of every school year, at every grade level, regardless of the number of returning students. Teachers and students practice it and reinforce it all year long.

This next school year we will make it a priority to restore further opportunities in music, art, foreign language, outdoor education, and beyond classroom learning for our K-8 students. Over the past 2 years, the loss of extra programing (Mountain Top Music, Tin Mountain, Spanish teacher, ESSC Ski, etc.) was due to the effects of COVID19. To follow the CDC and NH DHHS guidelines for school operation during the pandemic, we restricted outside staff and canceled our outside programing venues in an effort to keep our students, staff and community healthy. Rebuilding and increasing those programs will be facilitated as we pursue new resources for the high school. Our community connections will grow and new learning prospects are likely to arise.

In this building we have always had to deal with the noise of one classroom bleeding into another classroom due to our walls that do not reach to the vaulted ceilings. We continually manage this successfully with student education and their practice of awareness. The older students have always been much faster and more consistent with learning to contain their enthusiasm than younger students. Every year we allow and deal with the learning curve kindergarteners must go through to function within our classroom limitations. We believe the high school students will be able to develop this same level of respect in even less time.

A lot of the work has already been done. Many, many hours have gone into thoughtfully and meticulously detailing our HS plan over the past year before it was submitted to the NH Education Department for review. (It was officially approved last March.) There are numerous state authorized on-line courses that teachers can access to deliver curriculum to students. Like our younger grades, the high school teacher(s) will be addressing the individual needs of the student course load dictated both by state requirements and students’ interests, as well as taking advantage of the many creative options for meeting graduation requirements that have been approved by the NH Education Board. A High School Steering Committee has been formed by the RFPCS Board of Trustees which meets 3-4 times a month to put together final details for enrollment, staffing recommendations, daily class schedule details, curriculum organization, project-based learning implementation, acquisition of materials and supplies, etc. They will be putting the final touches on the process over the next months.

Our individualized work block classroom set up will continue with our HS students so that they will have the same opportunity for freedom of movement within the classroom setting and for choosing the order in which they work on their assignments, just as RFPCS students have always had at every grade level. Lessons in different academic subjects will be given on different days with time designated each day for completing individual assignments. Montessori practice at this age focuses on work ethic, time management, organizing and planning when and how to accomplish assignments, taking responsibility for task completion, and working collaboratively with others. Their project-based learning experiences will be based on research and problem solving more than information compilation and reporting.

Some of their work will have to be done on computers, just like all RFPCS students, but there will be pencil and paper options whenever possible. Looking at the amount of time students spend on computers working on assignments compared to time spent working with Montessori didactic materials, the first goes up as the second goes down at every grade level. This is due to students’ increasing ability to think abstractly and their decreasing need for concrete manipulation of materials. Increased use of technology each year is also due to the demands of today’s college educational requirements and the skills required to function in today’s job market. Montessori skills stressed at the high school level have less to do with hands-on activities and more to do with demonstrating mastery of new skills by completing projects that apply those skills. Therefore, at the high school level there will be plenty of opportunity for dynamic learning that does not require sitting in front of a screen, but also much that does.

Following the example of other successful K-12 charter schools in NH, we hope to hire 2 part time teachers, 1 to focus on teaching language arts and social studies classes, and 1 to focus on math and science classes. We are open to other possibilities, depending on the skill sets brought to the table by educators applying for positions with RFPCS. These teachers will also function as counselors to help guide students to discover their unique path to graduation.