The new owners of Old Mission Peninsula School signaled their intent Monday to pursue opening a self-managed charter school at the property in fall 2018.

At a community meeting held at Jolly Pumpkin, Old Mission Peninsula Education Foundation (OMPEF) board members provided the first look at plans for the elementary school since reaching a $1.1 million deal in January with Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) for the property. As part of the sale terms, TCAPS will continue to provide educational services to the school through June 2018, with OMPEF taking possession of the building in July 2018. TCAPS has voted to officially redistrict Old Mission students to Eastern Elementary School in fall 2018 – leaving OMPEF to either negotiate a new agreement with TCAPS to continue providing educational services to the building, or else launch its own school.

While OMPEF said it likely wouldn’t formally decide which route to pursue until May, board members and foundation supporters expressed strong support Monday for opening a charter school.

“That is what I would recommend, is to be a self-managed charter school,” said Erica Walsh, an Old Mission parent and certified teacher who previously served as a charter school principal in Warren. “You could be a nonprofit charter school. People think all charters are (run by management companies), and it’s not the case…they can be run in very, very different manners for very different communities.”

Walsh noted that charter schools receive per-pupil foundation funding from the state, follow state standards and testing requirements, are open to all students up to enrollment capacity, and must employ “certified and highly qualified” teachers. A charter school with 200 students would bring in $1.5 million annually in state funding, she said, adding that level of funding alone would not be "a lot of money to run a school.” (Old Mission’s enrollment count as of February was 149.) But as a nonprofit charter, Old Mission could also “optimize use of private donations through the foundation in order to maximize the amount that can be dedicated for education,” Walsh said.

OMPEF board members described wanting to focus on small class sizes at Old Mission, offer daycare and pre/post-school enrichment programs, “capitalize on the unique characteristics” of the school property, and have flexibility with start times and curriculum offerings – goals they said wouldn’t be possible under a TCAPS contract. As part of an estimated $400,000 annual education contract with TCAPS, OMPEF would need to choose two “a la carte” options among classes such as physical education, foreign languages and the arts, requiring the school to make compromises on courses it believed to be essential, board members said.

“Again, we’ve had great services, so we can stay with TCAPS…we know what that looks like, it’s comfortable,” said OMPEF board member Jennifer Coleman. “But we also have the opportunity to pursue another option.” She described as one possibility Old Mission becoming an EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning) school, a model of curriculum based in Outward Bound that encourages exploratory student learning and interdisciplinary group studies.

OMPEF Vice President Corey Phelps said regardless of whether the board continued to contract with TCAPS or opened a new charter school, members were certain about three aspects of Old Mission’s future. The school would remain a public school “available to all families,” it would open in September 2018, and it would be free to attend. “Will there be tuition? Absolutely not, 100 percent no on that,” Phelps said, drawing applause from the nearly 70 audience members in attendance. “There will never be tuition at this school.”

OMPEF board member Susan Shipman said OMPEF also wanted to utilize Old Mission as a community gathering space, offering a “world-class library” and events like summer camps, sports clinics, cooking classes, farmers markets and Saturday night basketball games. “That’s one of the primary goals…to partner with the community to fully utilize the building and its property,” Shipman said.

OMPEF announced a self-imposed January 2018 deadline to raise $2 million for the school. That amount would cover either a five-year contract with TCAPS or the launch of the charter school, according to Phelps – including building upgrades, curriculum, administrators and faculty. He said board members could decide as soon as May, however, which route to pursue. That date is when OMPEF will give its next public presentation, compiling written and verbal feedback submitted by Old Mission community members on the two options. With OMPEF having received its official 501(c)(3) status from the IRS last month, and the building sale officially set to close in mid-April, board members are now preparing to launch the next intensive fundraising phase of the project.

“(Old Mission) is an incredibly unique place,” Coleman told attendees Monday. “Now we have to make sure we do the right thing with it.”