Published: February 25, 2008 03:01 pm            

John Watson: Charter school serves at-risk students in community

Like regular school districts, charter schools are monitored and accredited under the statewide testing and accountability system.

According to the Texas Education Code, the purposes of charter schools are to improve student learning, increase the choice of learning opportunities within the public school system, create professional opportunities that will attract new teachers to the public school system, establish a new form of accountability for public schools and encourage different and innovative learning methods.

The Brazos River Charter School serves at-risk students in Bosque, Hood, Johnson and Somervell counties.

The school, at the intersection of County Roads 199 and 200 in Nemo, is on the same property as New Prospect Baptist Church. The school and church share office space, but the school has extra buildings at the back of the church for classrooms.

Mike Thames of Grandview is the superintendent. Thames taught and coached in traditional public schools for 20 years. His career has included positions at Cleburne, Lampasas and Grandview.

While visiting with Thames recently I asked how the Brazos River Charter School came to be. Here is the story he told me:

“As my daughter got older and got involved in athletics I decided it was a good time for me to go from that coaching position to administration,” he said. “I went back to school at the University of Texas in Arlington and got my master’s degree. While I was working on that degree in 1999 I met some gentlemen there that were, I guess you would say they were on the groundbreaking of the charter school movement. Charter schools are public schools. Fortunately we are able to operate a little differently from the traditional public schools and hopefully we can meet the needs of students that they don’t meet.

“I set out to learn all I could about it while I was in class with these guys. Thinking that, I’ve been in rural areas all my life and always knowing that there was a need for something different for the kids that weren’t involved in athletics, band or cheerleading. There wasn’t a niche for them. As a result, in a lot of our rural districts, they kinda get pushed into a corner. So I could see a school like this meeting the needs of those kids, give them something that they could be proud of and be involved in, participate in and be a real person.

“To make a long story short, I wrote an application for a charter, went down in front of the State Board of Education and made our presentation and was awarded a charter.”

They began looking for a quiet, attractive, rural site.

“I began to look first within the city limits of small towns and found out that buildings weren’t available,” Thames said. “Then I thought, what about churches? They sit vacant during school hours five days a week.

“So I began to look around in rural areas between Cleburne, Joshua, Keene and Alvarado. I didn’t see anything there that really attracted me so I started coming this way knowing that we could possibly draw kids from Granbury and Glen Rose. I do not know if it was divine intervention or what, but here I am. I met with the leadership of the church and proposed what I had planned for the school. I tried to create a winning situation for everyone. We win because we’ve got a great location. I tell our parents and students that the best thing about our school is its location; the worst thing about our school is its location.”

Many gravel trucks travel nearby to and from natural-gas drilling rigs in the area.

“We made an agreement with the church that we wouldn’t interfere with any of their activities. In fact we wanted to supplement their activities. We helped them with bills and paid them a lease. In turn they allowed us to transform this small rural church into a small rural school. We use most of the church facilities at one time or another. We’ll use the sanctuary because it’s the only room we have that’s big enough to house all our kids at once. We have parent meetings there. We mainly use this one wing for office space and very seldom get into the sanctuary and other classrooms of the church. All our classrooms are outside.

“In 2000 we started with nine kids the first day of school. Things didn’t look real bright. Word got out that we were offering something different: small classes, obviously. We really care for our kids and appreciate them for who they are; we may not agree with everything they do but at least we respect them. We’ve grown until we’ve got a waiting list to get in now; we stopped our enrollment at about 140. Over the last eight years it has kinda blossomed. We have been recognized by TEA as one of the best at-risk charter schools in the state. We have gotten several awards.”

The school teaches ninth through 12th grades.

The students only go to class four hours a day, and they are divided into two groups: One group has classes from 7:45 a.m. to noon, and the second group goes from 11:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. This way they can have more students with fewer classrooms and still not be overcrowded. The average student-to-teacher ratio is 1:10.



On the Net:

www.brazosriverschool.org

        

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