 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Finding and funding a school building is the most difficult task that many charter school boards face. Few schools are lucky enough to be associated with chartering agencies that provide support to purchase a building. Often schools end up in shopping malls, church basements, or other offices designed for some other use. Start-up funds from the federal charter schools program allow for remodeling a space, but they may not be used to purchase a building, and they are available only for three years. Many schools are busy getting established and growing their student bodies during these first three years, and they don’t have the opportunity to use the federal funds to remodel a permanent structure.
So charter founders must be creative and resourceful in looking for ways to fund their buildings. Our school, now in its third year in the small community of Sandpoint in the Idaho panhandle, spent its first two years in an old utility building that had narrow halls, tiny classrooms (formerly offices), poor climate control, and no large room in which we could all meet. By this past fall (2003), the building could not accommodate our growing school, and a third of our classes had to meet in a church building across a field, making for a muddy and later snowy transition between classes. But at mid-year we were finally able to move into our own building, remodeled to meet our needs. We will pay for it over the next 25 years, using a 90% guarantee and partial loan from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The USDA is admittedly not the first organization a school board might think about in looking for funding support. We are not teaching agriculture, and we are not located in an agriculturally intensive area. However, our local economy has been heavily dependent on logging, and the US Forest Service, which is part of USDA, has an office here. (In fact, for a while we considered using part of their building for our school!) Our loan guarantee was made available through the USDA’s Rural Development program, and we qualify for support through this program partly because our school is located in a community of fewer than 10,000 people.
The Rural Development program provides resources to rural communities for projects that do not qualify for any other kind of funding. In general, USDA prefers that applicants have a business operating history of at least five years before it will consider them. When we started looking at this program, we were barely into our second year of operation. But we particularly wanted to purchase and remodel our building within our first three years, as this enabled us to use federal charter school funds for some of the remodeling costs. It also meant that our monthly building payments would go into equity in our own building, instead of into another property owner’s pocket for several more years.
Although we had a short operating history, we came to USDA with a well-considered plan containing four year projections, current financial audits, clear and realistic goals that fit our financial projections, and a community and local school board that strongly support our school. With this information, USDA was willing to consider us even though our track record was shorter than five years. However, we had to meet numerous additional requirements, including commissioning an independent study of both need and support for our school in our community, and other schools considering this option should be prepared to do a lot of work to complete these requirements. Even after our loan guarantee was approved, USDA continued to monitor our architect selection, construction bid process, land and building purchases, and remodel design and completion. It would not have been possible for a staff member to do all the work that was required, so we contracted with a consultant to help us define our initial plan, complete a feasibility study, find the funding, and search for land and building sites. He was kept on to manage the project to completion.
The building we purchased was a thirty-year-old steel-frame light manufacturing building on what used to be the edge of town. We took a long-term view in deciding on remodel priorities: We upgraded the plumbing and heating systems to save on utility costs and to prevent the need for repairs later. We purchased a neighboring piece of land for an outdoor recreation area, knowing that we weren’t likely to get another chance to buy land. But the trade-offs in current amenities are significant and keenly felt by the current students and staff: We do not yet have funds to remove the old farm buildings on our outdoor space so we can let our students use it. We didn’t have enough money to finish our library, resource room, and multipurpose room, so current students cannot use those. Finding the resources to complete these areas is an ongoing project for the board.
The project would not have been possible without a great deal of assistance from many members of our community. The building’s previous owner agreed to make part of the purchase price a donation so that we could stay within the loan guidelines. Parent and community volunteers--even our USDA loan officer--helped us remove the old ceiling tiles and store them for re-use in our remodeled building, and the move from the old building to the new one was an all-volunteer effort as well. Our county commissioners and school board (our chartering agency) wrote letters to USDA to support us. The city of Sandpoint upgraded the road to our site and built a new road to address issues of access for buses and safety for students walking and cycling to school. Our principal and operations manager have put in far more hours than we could reasonably expect them to, yet we could not have completed this project without their contributions.
We moved into our new building just eighteen months after we
decided to buy it. Our hard-working board has paused to catch its collective
breath, but we know we have lots of work left to do. If your school is in a
small community and you want to get more information about our use of the Rural
Development Program, please call us at Sandpoint (Idaho) Charter School,
208.255.7771.
Cate Huisman was treasurer of Sandpoint Charter School during the time the building was acquired, and she remains a member of the board.
