Elementary charter school could be coming to Lava Hot Springs

LAVA HOT SPRINGS — A small town in Southeast Idaho could soon be getting a new charter school.

Following a community meeting Thursday in Lava Hot Springs, Kolleen DeGraff, who founded one of the first charter schools in Utah, was selected as the fellow to lead the imitative.

Concerned community members packed into the Lava Senior Center for a meeting among members of the SOS, or Lava Save our School Facebook page , to discuss the creation of a charter school. The discussion comes after the Marsh Valley school board last spring discussed potentially shutting down the only school left in Lava Hot Springs.

After a series of informative speeches and small question and answer forums by Lorrie Lowe, Megan Reno, Oliver Ries and Randy Benglan, frontrunner Kolleen DeGraff took the stand to express her interest in leading the charge as the elected fellow to establish a potential charter school in Lava.

With little deliberation, a consensus was established by the over 50 people in attendance to allow DeGraff to move forward as the fellow for the potential charter school. In a general sense, the fellow position is similar to a principal or charter school superintendent that will help in not only making the charter school a reality but assisting in designing and laying out curriculum with a community-led focus, along with developing all the other aspects required for a functioning school.

While DeGraff still needs the Marsh Valley School District and Bluum, the non-profit agency charged with overseeing the establishment of charter schools in Idaho, to officially approve the community's selection of her as fellow, there is a sense that her nomination is somewhat of a foregone conclusion.

If hired in an official capacity, Bluum will provide an administrator salary to DeGraff but the actual amount has not yet been determined as the process is still fresh and ongoing. Sometime in the coming weeks, likely March, the Marsh Valley School Board and Bluum, through association with Albertson's Foundation, will make a determination surrounding the community's selection of DeGraff.

DeGraff served as founder and administrator of Liahona Preparatory Academy north of Provo, Utah, for 24 years. The school was ranked top 50 in the nation for distance learning in 2014, 2017 and 2018 by BestSchool.org, an independent ranking organization. The academy also is highly graded on niche.com a school search website with a focus on aggregate reviews and rankings.

“I had lots of experience in innovating new programs, policies, procedures, picking curriculum and hiring and firing teachers," DeGraff said. “I founded a charter called Noah Webster Academy in Orem, Utah in 2005. I have experience with writing charters and know how charters work and so when the district started talking about closing Lava (elementary) and possibly turning it into a charter, a couple of people here in town knew my educational background. They said, ‘Would you be willing to help us?’ and my heartstrings got pulled.”

DeGraff has been a resident of Lava since 2019 and considers the hot spring oasis a meaningful place for her. She considers schools the lifeblood of the community and feels like the two are intertwined. Impressed by the activism and enthusiasm of the citizenry in Lava, DeGraff has stepped forward as a strong fixture and leader for the charter school.

Regarding her vision, Degraff wants to work closely with the community to enact their wishes and provide a good foundation on which the charter school can be built and continue to thrive.

“One of the wonderful things about a charter is that it's governed from the bottom up instead of from the top down,” DeGraff said. “So, a lot of those decisions will be decided by the actual community and my job is to carry them out. At the moment, what I'm hearing is that people will prefer it to stay an elementary and not move into junior high or high school, although they are interested in an online component. Malad has a very successful online component. In fact, they're building a brand-new elementary school that they paid for completely from their online program.”

DeGraff continued, “There's a whole bunch of areas to explore. That’s kind of what I'm hoping to help with if I'm the (fellow). But my goal would be that the elementary school here is thriving, achieving a high academic performance, and is something that attracts everyone — from those who have left because they've been uncertain about whether the elementary was going to still be here, to possibly homeschoolers, just anyone who is looking for a really excellent program. That's my goal.”

Currently, there are a few concerns regarding aspects like Lava Hot Springs' steadily dwindling population, the formation of potential district boundaries, the relationship between the Marsh Valley School District and the Lava community and the financial metrics involved in supporting and maintaining a charter school.

However, with the nomination of DeGraff and the red-hot fervor of passionate residents in Lava to protect the future of the quaint elementary school, it seems like in the coming months that progress will be made as the viability of a charter school is determined. As far as DeGraff is concerned, she is confident in the ability to make a thriving local school a possibility.

“What I would like to relay is watch us change, watch us grow, watch us innovate new programs, watch us have more flexibility, and watch us do a better job of educating our students,” DeGraff said. “Hopefully, watch us just become vibrant and thriving and (have) real synergy around the school so that people feel like they're getting the very best education they can when they're there.”

DeGraff continued, “We have great teachers. It's not their fault that programs have been pulled back and funding has been pulled back. The uncertainty of ‘Will there be a school here year after year?’ has gone on for several years now. I just want people to feel solid. I want them to feel like it's the very best program that is offered in the district. The district actually said take as many students from us as you can, just make it that good and that's our hope.”