Heartwood Educational Collaborative, the Waldorf-inspired charter school formerly called WISE Academy where some parents in West Marin have opted to send their children since 2014, lost its access to public funds this week and must now rely on reserves to stay open.
The umbrella school program through which Heartwood holds its charter, CalSTEAM, ran into difficulties with its authorizer, Liberty School District in Sonoma County, and decided to self-revoke its charter. The Fairfax school was alerted late last month that it could no longer be a program under CalSTEAM, which primarily supports virtual education programs.
“We knew that they were eventually going to dissolve their charter, but we thought we had at least until the end of the year,” said Lagunitas resident Greg Browman, a founding member of Heartwood who remains a member of the governing council. “It’s not the first time we’ve had challenges, but this is a big challenge.”
Mr. Browman said the school will stay open through the end of the year, and that there are several options to pursue going forward. “There’s tremendous support from the families to keep operating,” he said. “The kids might not notice anything at all, but we do have to hustle to keep things going.”
Mr. Browman said school representatives have been meeting with counterparts from other charter schools and soliciting professional and legal advice. Among the alternatives that might be open to the school, Heartwood could find a new umbrella organization through which to attain a charter, or pursue its own direct charter agreement with its local school district—Ross Valley—or another authorizer. It could also become a collaborative of homeschooled children, or go private.
The latter option, Mr. Browman explained, was not ideal since the parents at the school “are public school people and don’t typically have a lot of money—they haven’t chosen a private school.” Regardless, he said he expected increased fundraising efforts in the coming months.
Heartwood was launched by families of the Lagunitas School District’s Waldorf-inspired program, which ended in 2014, and by parents from West Marin who had attempted to start an alternative to Shoreline Unified schools a few years earlier.
It ultimately found a home at the Henry Bothin Youth Center, a girl scouts camp in the White Hill Open Space Preserve, and there are now around 160 students enrolled.
“Getting a school up and running the way that we did is so incredibly difficult and takes so much heavy lifting,” said Kegan Stedwell, who served as the school’s director from 2015 until last summer. “I hope with all my heart that Heartwood continues to be a public program and to be supported by the county.”
Ms. Stedwell grew up in Point Reyes and said that when she came back to the area to raise her children, she knew she wanted an alternative education, but there was nothing public less than 25 minutes away. She described multiple efforts from parents to start alternative schools in West Marin, but none managed to open their doors until Heartwood.
“In Marin, if you don’t subscribe to how they teach our children in the local public schools—with stopwatches, testing, the same stories of the pilgrims that we all learned—and you have another idea that has validity and that is relevant, starting a charter school is the route you take,” she said.
Until now, Heartwood has held an “independent study” charter, which means that students are in the classroom no more than 80 percent of the time, allowing parents to play a larger role their children’s education and students to spend time outside of the classroom. For the lower grades, Fridays are spent outdoors.
Heartwood’s education aligns with that philosophy of educating the whole child, or “social emotional learning.” Though students still have to take standardized tests, the Waldorf curriculum does not use traditional textbooks, allowing teachers to adhere to a different set of principles, including integrating traditional academic subjects with music, movement, theater and crafts.
Ms. Stedwell said a third of the parents resonate with the nature-based aspect of the school, another third resonate with the Waldorf philosophy and the rest just want an alternative to their local public school.
Despite the fact that charter schools appear to be highly prized—the waiting list at Novato Charter, a well-regarded option for West Marin parents, has historically ranged in the hundreds—Ms. Stedwell also said charter schools have generated a lot of controversy in Marin over the years.
Marin has just four charter schools—far fewer than neighboring counties (Sonoma has over 50). Ms. Stedwell described the county as “hostile to these types of parent-led efforts.” The founding of Ross Valley Charter School, in the same district as Heartwood, was extremely divisive, she said.
Per state law, if it did not work with its own district, Ross Valley, Heartwood had to find an authorizing district outside of the county. It has since operated under this configuration: the Liberty School District authorized CalSTEAM, technically a charter school itself, which in turn managed the charter for Heartwood and provided other administrative and management services. (Before CalSTEAM, Heartwood used a different third-party organization, the Academy of Arts and Sciences.)
“I encourage [Heartwood] to go through the process of getting their own charter and not being part of a charter management organization,” said Chris Rafanelli, superintendent of Liberty School District. “They were basically giving money away that maybe they could have been spending on their kids, since that organization was taking some fee for management. They would not be able to get it likely until next school year, but I believe that’s the best option.”
Mr. Rafanelli said there have been longstanding issues with CalSTEAM, and that the district was in the process of revoking its charter when the organization self-revoked.
Among the unresolved issues were inaccurate attendance and interim reports, the lack of a functioning board as required by its charter and alleged violations of the Brown Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the state education code.
Though Liberty first alerted CalSTEAM about concerns back in November 2016—and the organization indicated it would remedy the problems—Mr. Rafanelli said the issues had persisted.
CalSTEAM executive Eli Johnson did not return emails or calls before press time.
“The working relationship with CalSTEAM was very, very tricky and not ideal and there was always an understanding that we would have to go for our own charter eventually,” Ms. Stedwell said.
Yet she was also critical of the county’s lack of involvement. “Not one member of the Marin County Office of Education ever came to see our school in four years—and we are not a fringe institution. There is a perception that [the county office] has an anti-charter stance and that they hope that parent-driven efforts like these wither and die on their own if they never step in.”
Mary Jane Burke, the county superintendent of schools, said she was “not against” charter schools; in fact, she helped start one of the only charters in the county, Phoenix Academy. Nevertheless, “our traditional public schools are very, very strong and I encourage every parent to consider them and to get to know what they have to offer,” she said.
Ms. Burke also said she did not know why there were fewer charter schools in the county, but said there were a variety of other types of programs aside from charter schools, such as the School of Environmental Leadership within Terra Linda High School, that perhaps met the need for alternative programs.
She made it clear that the Ross Valley District and other districts would accommodate any new students, should Heartwood close. John Carroll, superintendent of the Lagunitas and Bolinas-Stinson Union School Districts, said that families had picked up six new enrollment forms in recent weeks, but that none had yet been filed.
“That could change at any minute,” he wrote in an email. “We currently have the capacity to handle several more students and are always happy to be able to serve our local children.”