The Roseland School District board is poised Wednesday to revise its charter school plan to allow additional school sites, a key step in plans to launch a seventh-through-12th-grade school at the site of the former Ursuline High School north of Santa Rosa.
The vote comes as more details emerge about how the rapidly growing west Santa Rosa public school district was able to land the site of one of the region's most noteworthy private schools, a Catholic institution that closed in the spring after 130 years of operation. The plan was disclosed publicly on Monday.
Sister Christine van Swearingen, one of three nuns who make up the Sisters of Ursuline Corp., said that late last year when they began investigating the possibility of locating a public charter school at the Ursuline site someone from the Roseland community suggested they take a look at Roseland district charter schools.
But conversations with school officials did not begin until after the sisters visited Roseland University Prep charter high school early this year, van Swearingen said.
"We just went out to look at it and see how it operated and had heard so much about it," she said. The Ursuline sisters eventually met with students, teachers and staff from several Roseland district schools.
"The kids knew the curriculum backward and forward," she said. "Those kids sold us, in part. Then we saw what was going on in the classroom with the students."
The model the nuns witnessed, which primarily serves an underprivileged Latino population, is aligned with their stated goals of "social justice" and reaching as many kids as possible.
Van Swearingen said the visits got them entertaining the idea of hosting a Roseland district-operated school at the Ursuline campus. Then the Ursuline sisters learned of the spring lottery being held for the overload of students trying to get into Roseland Accelerated Middle School, known as RAMS. It was the first lottery for the middle school.
From there, it seemed like a perfect fit to bring the Roseland model to the Ursuline campus, van Swearingen said.
She and school officials would not reveal financial aspects about the tentative arrangement, saying those are still being negotiated. A lease agreement has not been established, they said.
Rosie Greco, the Roseland district business manager, said the sisters are eager to see the buildings used for education. "They are not going to give it to us," she said.
"They basically want us to get it up and running," Greco said. "It's a great building, it's already established.
Van Swearingen said the rent will be comparable to what neighboring Cardinal Newman High School is paying to use a portion of the Ursuline property to accommodate its growth in enrollment after the boy's Catholic high school became co-ed in the wake of the closure of the girls school.
"We don't intend to scalp them," said van Swearingen, referring to the Roseland district. She said the lease is not intended to get the Ursuline Corp. out of the financial "hole" caused by subsidizing the private girls school.
The Sisters of Ursuline put $1.2 million into the school to subsidize the completion of the 2010-11 year. Two years earlier, the sisters provided a $260,000 bailout.
"The hole is going to remain a hole," she said. "Those losses are going to remain. Right now, we're still operating at a loss because we have to continue to maintain those assets and to clean up the school."
Discussions have focused on what Roseland is able to pay, said Greco and Roseland superintendent Gail Ahlas. Talks include discussion of scheduling and access, including where the initial class of seventh graders will be served lunch and how other food service operations will be handled.
"I know we are not going to have access to a lot of things," Greco said, noting that Cardinal Newman has negotiated use of many campus facilities, including the eight-classroom "Quad," the gym, the art classroom, the covered eating area and the softball field.
Ahlas said the school is expected to open next fall with 60 seventh graders. The plan is to add an additional 60 students each year until the school has a continuous seventh-through-12th grade roster.
When the accelerated middle school opened 10 years ago, the goal was to start with 60 students for the seventh grade and then to add an additional 60 for the eighth grade the following year. But by the second year, enrollment jumped to 147 kids.
"By the second year, we had a huge waiting list," Ahlas said. "We ended opening a third seventh-grade class. Now we have five seventh-grade classes and five eighth-grade classes."
Enrollment at RAMS is 300 students, with a waiting list of 60. The district's charter high school, University Prep, has 400 students with a waiting list of more than 20, Ahlas said.
Ahlas said district officials hope to draw students from a wide area, as well as from the pool of students who live in the Roseland district but attend schools elsewhere, including the Santa Rosa School District. Last year, 80 seventh and eighth graders who lived in the Roseland district attended Santa Rosa city schools.
"For a charter school, your enrollment area is the state of California," she said.
Under the informal agreement, the Ursuline sisters will join about 50 people who sit on the schools' nongoverning advisory panel. It meets officially once a year but more often depending on the interests of board members. The members lead efforts for fundraising, scholarships, tutoring programs and other business.
Van Swearingen said that although the school will not be teaching "religious doctrine," its mission will fulfill the religious order's commitment to social justice and educating as many people as possible.
"We're not abandoning religion at all; what we're trying to do is really live out the gospel," she said.
Bishop Robert Vasa of the Santa Rosa Catholic Diocese concurred. He said that regardless of whether a person eats "a piece of blessed bread or bread donated by an atheist, that person is fed."
"Hopefully, the people that come to the new Roseland buildings will have at least a vague awareness that that opportunity is provided to them by virtue of the generosity of the Catholic sisters," he said.
That in turn, she said, could "perhaps move those young people to take a look at the Catholic faith."
He said the deal also might provide Cardinal Newman with a few candidates.
"It may in fact be an increased opportunity for Cardinal Newman to grow," he said.
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