Alaska Education

Currently, Alaska has 24 charter schools.

Anchorage School District
Alaska Native Cultural Charter School
Aquarian Charter School
Eagle Academy
Family Partnership Charter School
Frontier Charter School
Highland Tech High
Winterberry Public School
Rilke Schule German School of Arts and Sciences

Fairbanks North Star Borough School District
Chinook Montessori
Effie Kokrine Charter School
Star of the North Secondary School

Juneau Borough Schools
Juneau Community Charter School

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District
Aurora Borealis Charter School
Fireweed Academy
Kaleidoscope School of Arts & Sciences
Soldotna Montessori Charter School

Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District
Ketchikan Charter School
Tongass School of Arts & Sciences

Lower Kuskokwim Schools
Ayaprun Elitnaurvik

Mat-Su Borough Schools
Academy Charter School
Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School
Midnight Sun Family Learning Center
Twindly Bridge Charter School

Nome City Schools
Anvil City Science Academy

Charter schools are public schools, but they are exempt from certain state and district requirements.  For example, a charter school does not need to use the same curriculum as the rest of the school district.

Charter schools are typically smaller than other schools in a district.  They cannot charge tuition and must allow any student in the district to enroll (although they can set limits on the number of students that can enroll).  If more students want to enroll in a charter school than the school allows, typically a lottery or other random system is used to select which students get to enroll.

Most charter schools are formed around some unique ideology or educational philosophy.  For example, the Effie Kokrine Charter School in Fairbanks is focused on Native Alaskan learning styles. The Winterberry Public School in Anchorage uses the Whole Child Curriculum, based on the Waldorf educational philosophy.

Many charter schools are started by concerned parent groups or teachers who have become dissatisfied with some aspect of their school district’s educational philosophy.  All charter schools must be approved by the local school board and the state department of education.

A somewhat controversial state law mandates that a charter school with fewer than 150 students gets substantially less funding than a charter school with at least 150 students.  This provision was put in place in an effort to avoid having a large number of extremely small charter schools cropping up across the state.

In the coming days we’ll be spotlighting each of the different charter schools in Alaska.