Will Piru Charter School offer a true educational alternative? The answer is a resounding yes!

Piru Charter School supports the Educating the Whole Child approach to learning that includes: using researched-based instructional strategies to increase student achievement, using a social-emotional development program that impacts the attitudes of children in a positive and profound way, and using aerobic exercise to focus, motivate, and invigorate students. This powerful three-step recipe for student success is a true educational alternative and will be the only school in Ventura to offer it!

Lower class size in grades 4-6 to 24 students will mean that all students will receive more of the individual attention they need to successfully enter middle school, high school, and college. As educational material in mathematics, language arts, and the content areas becomes more complex, and as some parents are less able to help their students at home, it is educationally unsound to increase class size to THIRTY-TWO students in grades 4-6. Piru Charter School will be the only school in FUSD to offer this exciting and important student to teacher ratio!

Keeping struggling students in core instruction, rather than having them sent to remedial classes, is a departure from the practices of FUSD for the last five years, and one, which proved very successful for Piru students. When twelve of our lowest 4th grade students were placed in a small Open Court class for Language Arts, all twelve moved from Far Below and Below Basic to Basic. Having teachers handle remediation for their own students, in small groups after school, has proved successful in helping students catch up while continuing to move ahead in mastery of state standards. Piru Charter School will continue and improve this innovative approach to learning!

Piru Charter School will integrate strategic English Language Development skill instruction into content area instruction. In the past some students received their English Learner instruction in lieu of instruction in Science and Social Science. All Piru Charter School students will have daily access to a full elementary curriculum!

Project Based Learning will further help English Learners and other Piru students learn to work together collaboratively to apply their learning by solving problems together. By grading these projects with student-developed rubrics, Piru Charter students will learn to better evaluate their work and learn the skills necessary to be successful in the 21st Century.

Our 6th grade Outdoor Education Week, cultural outreach program, and yearly whole-school College Visitation Day is unique in the FUSD and will expand and improve as part of the Piru Charter School experience!

Piru Charter School will use the Sacramento Reading Lions Tests, student and teacher developed rubrics, data analysis, and team collaboration to improve student learning.

Why create a charter school during a budget crisis? Now is the PERFECT time for Piru Charter School to demonstrate that school reform can thrive in a challenging economy. WE BELIEVE STUDENTS NEED NOT PAY THE PRICE OF BUDGET CUTS. Although Charter schools use fewer governmental funds per student more funds are available to the classroom! This is exactly what is needed during a budget crisis. Piru Charter School money will be used to directly support the needs of all students not a district office full of administrators.

When the only local school in Piru is under-performing something needs to be done. The State of California and the Federal Government have made it clear it is NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE to lock students into schools that are not successful or wait for local school districts to react. Since Piru Elementary was a Decile One school just a year ago, (over 90% of the schools in the State were performing better than Piru) it is critical that action be taken to bring change to this school now so that Piru students have an opportunity equal to other California students. This is only fair. The charter movement was designed to replace low performing public schools with high performing public charter schools. Charter authorization will provide elementary students a choice of remaining in Piru or being bussed into Fillmore. A school of choice benefits everyone.

Please join us in our efforts to create Piru Charter School. The Piru Charter School meets regularly and can be reached at: pirucharterschool@earthlink.com. If the Ventura County Office of Education does not authorize us on January 25, we will pursue authorization at the state level through the Department of Education.

The Piru Charter Petitioners