CCS FAQ

The Corbett Charter School iPad Incentive program for 9th graders, the Senior Recognition scholarships, the optional Late Start program for 10th-12th graders with parent approval are not intended to cause divisions.  We value our partnership with Corbett School District and we will never take any action that might cause harm to its other programs.

We do, however, have an obligation to make distinctions.  Corbett Charter School is an independent entity.  It was never our purpose to build a facade of a school in order to pull in extra money.  We do generate significant dollars, and those dollars are a tremendous asset to the District, but in exchange for that support and in order to earn our legal status as a charter school, we offer a significant educational option to Corbett’s programming.  To do less would be dishonest.

Philosophy for Children, School Wide Imaginative Education, Learning in Depth, Membership in The College Keys Compact, and modest incentive programs designed to help students over a couple of traditional ‘rough spots’: these things are distinctive.  They are unique to the Charter School.  They are available to anyone who enrolls.  But they are not intended to be (nor could they be so construed by fair-minded observers) divisive.  People get choices.  Corbett School District has held that position for at least a decade.  Corbett Charter School supports and expands that commitment.

Choice without distinctions is meaningless.

Great question!

First, we believe that education is a celebration of the wonder of the world and of our freedom to explore it together.  We do not want to teach a lesson that says “Because learning is boring, we want to give you a party-break today.”  If we were a work-sheet factory, then perhaps we would feel differently. We believe that there is great joy in being together and in spending our precious few hours purposefully.  Our experience is that the vast majority of our students enjoy being in school.

Second, we realize that nearly all of the schools around us are offering less than a full school year.  Our school days are hard-won, and we intend to honor the work of those who saved us from cuts over the past several years.   We believe this to be a matter of good stewardship.  We also appreciate that our four-day week allows ample time for social activities outside of school!

Third, and related to the first two, is that we know that many of our parents expect when they send their children to school that we will spend our time and energies in educational pursuits.

Finally, holidays frequently have a religious connotation, and we have an obligation as a public school to ensure that no student is made to feel left our because of differences among the cultures of our families.  Major holidays include days off from school when everyone is free to celebrate or not, with family and friends, in accordance with their own beliefs.

Great Question!

When you submit an online application, be sure to print a copy for your records!  That’s your verification.

When the lottery is conducted (or if it has already been conducted when you apply) then you will get an email indicating either that you have been accepted or that you are on a wait list.  If you are on the wait list, this email will tell you what your wait list number is.

We update wait list emails as students approach the top of the wait list, and we send an email immediately upon admission to notify parents of the opportunity to enroll.

Due to privacy concerns, we no longer publish the wait list on the web.

We answer email inquiries into wait list status as time allows.

The entire application is done online.  We will open in late November or early December, so keep an eye out!
A good way to get this done would be to simply go to the connect page on the Corbett School District website and sign up for
CCS News updates via email/text/etc. and when we post about
application timing, you’ll get the update in whatever form works for you.

All applications are taken electronically during the ‘window’ (appr. Early December through the end of January) for our online application process.  We will conduct the required lottery in early February and will attempt to inform all parents of admitted students by the end of February.  Both admitted and wait-listed students will receive an email detailing their status.

When you sign up for the Common Application, you must use the correct email address to make my list of students.  They don’t use my name, but my email address, which is bdunton@corbettcharter.k12.or.us

I look forward to assisting you with your college plans!

Admission to Corbett Charter School is based on a lottery system.

Step one is to fill out an online application when the window opens for the upcoming school year.  This will be late November or early December each year.  The window for electronic applications will be open for no less than one month, and everyone who applies during the window will be treated as though their applications arrived on the same day.

Step two is to wait for notification regarding admission or wait list status.  This will arrive by email, following the lottery.  We will try to have all parties informed by the end of February each year.

Step three is to fill out enrollment forms at the school.  There will be scheduled events to facilitate this, but it is possible to do so on an individual basis in keeping with your personal schedule.  Our hope is to have all enrollment forms collected by the end of May each year.

The history of music in the West is largely the history of religious music.  It can be no surprise that much of the Western repertoire was born in the Church.  Corbett School District adheres to the principles of civic responsibility, and its programs are not religious in nature.  Religious content must be carefully distinguished from religious intent.  It is the express intention of Corbett School District to respect, in its every act, the diversity of persuasions that constitute our vibrant, diverse communities.  Our music programs serve the sole purpose of educating our students.  The enjoyment of our audiences is a fortunate byproduct of that purpose.

CCS is funded via the same funding formula as all schools. CCS is funded based on the ADM (average daily membership) number of students that they have. The District collects the money from the state on behalf of the school, and then forwards the money generated by CCS students to CCS. This year CCS will earn about 2.7 million dollars via the funding formula. The school will use about 2 million dollars of the 2.7 million to pay for CCS teachers and supplies for CCS classrooms. The school will pay the district apx. $700,000 for rent and other services like office support, and recess supervision.

A student can graduate with honors on their diploma by earning the 28 credit college ready diploma with the following ratio of coursework:

Eleven credits or more of Math, Science, and Socials studies with no less than three in any single discipline.

Three credits in Spanish.

Three AP Courses.

Corbett Charter School policy varies from Corbett School.  See the Corbett Charter School handbook for details.

For a student to be eligible they must be on course to graduate. This includes passing at least 5 out of 7 courses in the previous trimester and earning 6 credits in the previous three trimesters. Eligibility for co-curricular activities can also be revoked because of student behavior that violates school rules.

Corbett Charter School was created to foster innovative teaching strategies and to increase students achievement for hundreds of students and their families. It capitalizes on space made available through the decades-long decline in the school-aged population within the Corbett District boundaries. Corbett Charter School’s use of the Corbett School District facilities generates over a half million dollars a year in revenue. Finally, it extends stable, reliable access to a quality education to those students who live outside the Corbett School District. Other means of access to Corbett, through inter-district agreements or through new legislation, threaten to allow students access that can be revoked. The new ‘school choice’ law, for example, has a built-in expiration date that could leave families stranded mid-schooling. Corbett Charter School is the only reliable means by which students living outside the District can access schooling through grade twelve.

The differences between CCS and Corbett School are greatest in the elementary building, where an entirely different philosophy of education is at work. Imaginative Education, an approach developed over the course of three decades by Kieran Egan, organizes teaching and learning around the value of emotional engagement. Imaginative Education emphasizes the development of oral language skills far more than do other approaches to teaching, and focuses laser-like on literacy in the intermediate grades (4-6).

While elementary programs at Corbett Schools and CCS are both multi-age, CCS uses a broader configuration (K-3 in the primary grades) and offers 6^th grade (in a 4-6 classroom) in the Corbett Grade School building.  CCS operates 8 of the 18 classrooms in the Corbett Grade School building.

In the middle school, classroom practices are very similar and all classrooms for both schools are multi-age, but the CCS classrooms are only 7th-8^th grades while the Corbett School classes include 6^th graders. Three of the eight classrooms in the middle school building are CCS.

The high school curriculum is virtually identical for both schools, though CCS Students face higher graduation requirements. Ninth graders in both schools attend their core classes in self-contained classrooms with teachers who are qualified across the curriculum. CCS 9^th graders take AP Human Geography, AP Environmental Science, English, Spanish and math through Algebra I from their homeroom teacher. The homeroom is comprised entirely of CCS students. They take music or PE from a Corbett Schools teacher.

From 10^th grade on, all classes are fully integrated, with CCS teachers and Corbett School teachers sharing students throughout the day. The community is so close that most teachers have no specific knowledge regarding which students are enrolled in which school.

In addition to two 9^th grade teachers, CCS employs the 10^th grade AP World History and 10^th Grade English teacher, the full-time AP English teacher, the AP Calculus, AP Statistics and pre-calculus teacher, a full-time Social Studies/Math teacher and a full-time Chemistry/Math teacher.

For more information on Imaginative Education visit http://ierg.net/.

CCS purchases $700,000.00 worth of District services each year. This is in addition to paying all of its own expenses with regard to teachers, supplies and materials, Advanced Placement exams, and other operating costs. In addition to $30,000.00 per classroom for use of the facilities, CCS pays Corbett School District for secretarial support, playground supervision, custodial services, technology support, and paper supplies: $190,000.00 in all. High School teachers employed by CCS significantly expand the high school curriculum, creating a combined faculty that offers Oregon’s best college preparatory opportunity.

Like the vast majority of Districts in Oregon, Corbett School District had to make significant budget cuts. But in no cases have those cuts been as severe as those experienced by its neighbors on all sides. Countless Districts have given up on the idea of offering a full school year. Corbett has had to tighten the belt, but next year’s plan is to offer a full school year and an extremely rich experience to all of its students. CCS is a prime reason why the draconian cuts experienced by our neighbors have been significantly reduced in Corbett.

CCS families are good citizens. They contribute significantly to the quality of school life in Corbett. CCS students participate disproportionately in the athletic program and in some cases it is their participation that has kept a program viable. CCS parent volunteers seem to be everywhere, investing much more than just their time and transportation to the success of their students in Corbett. They are a very caring community and add an intangible quality to Corbett Schools.

Corbett School District is the sponsor of CCS. Because Corbett School has long been among the very finest in the state, it gave Corbett Charter School immediate name recognition. Because Corbett School has been a ‘destination’ school for nearly a decade, there were students and families already committed to educating their children in the Corbett community before CCS was formed. When neighboring districts attempted to force these families to leave Corbett (which, under the law, they had a right to do and will again after 2017) then the space available in the Corbett District facilities offered a quality environment for CCS to put to use.

The integrated high school program works both ways. Neither school could afford to offer what both schools can offer in combination. Corbett’s music and art programs, its athletic program, and the specialists in various other secondary disciplines significantly enhance CCS offerings.

In exchange for payments totaling over $700,000.00 annually, the District provides facilities and utilities as well as support services for the CCS such as janitorial, aide supervision, and office support.

The current agreement expires at the end of the 2013-14 school year.

In the spring of 2011, the Charter agreement was extended for three more years because the superintendent believed, and the Board concurred, that this was in the best educational interests of Corbett School students. By renewing the Charter agreement the district expects to receive around an additional $190,000 annually  from the CCS. The district has no reserves to draw from, and has cut every program past the meat and to the bone. IF the district did not collect the additional $190,000, programs, teachers, or days would have had to be lopped off the school year. Between 5 and 6 of our most junior teachers would have had to be laid off pushing class size well into the 40’s. Or the district could have cut around five weeks of school. Pushing class size into the 40’s or cutting off five weeks of school was not in the best educational interest of students.

Corbett Charter School (CCS) is operated by the Corbett Charter School Association, a private, non-profit corporation authorized to operate a K-12 school through the sponsorship of and under contract to Corbett School District.

CCS shall have the authority to exercise independently, also consistent with federal and state law, all powers granted to nonprofit corporations and charter schools so long as such powers are not inconsistent with the terms of the Charter Agreement, including without limits the following powers: making all personnel decisions regarding charter school staff; contract for goods and services necessary for the operation of the school; prepare and budget; procure necessary insurance and bonds; prepare a budget; lease facilities; lease or purchase furniture, equipment and supplies; retain fees collected from students; organize and carry out fund raising efforts; accept and expend gifts, donations or grants.

CCS is served by the CCS Board (learn more about the CCS Board) and daily operation of CCS is the responsibility of the Director, who serves as adviser to the CCS Board. The Director is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the CCS Association Board of Directors. The Association Board of Directors establishes the duties and responsibilities, working conditions and compensation of the Director.

The CCS Director is responsible for the hiring, supervision, discipline, and assignment of all staff members. The Director is further responsible for all professional development, budget development, student achievement and student management. The Director is responsible for the compliance of CCS with all relevant state and district regulations and for the procurement of goods and services necessary to the operation of CCS. The Director serves as the Chief Financial Officer of CCS and as such authorizes all expenditures and approves all contracts with service providers.

CCS is a small, tightly focused, college-preparatory program.  The entire staff operates with ‘open doors’ and appreciates the opinions and observations of all members of the school community.  Program decisions will be driven primarily by any recognized need to adjust to changes in the expectations of those colleges, universities, training programs and employers who represent future opportunities for our graduates.  The Corbett Charter Association will have final responsibility for the shape of CCS.

Issues and grievances should be handled at the lowest level possible. Typically this involves communication with teachers first, building level principals next, the superintendent third, and in rare circumstances the school board.

Visitors are directed to check in at the office immediately after entering the building. If they need to deliver something to or talk to their student then the office staff will deliver items to the classroom, escort the visitor to the classroom and then back to the office, or retrieve the student and escort them to the office. If the visitor is staying on campus due to volunteering or special visits to the classroom they will sign in on the visitor clipboard and wear a visitor’s badge at all times. Staff will question anyone in the building that is not staff and is not wearing a visitor’s badge. Visitors will sign out upon leaving the building and return the visitors badge. Badges are numbered and will be changed when a badge is missing.

Progress Reports from grade school teachers are narrative. Teachers collect information about a student’s progress and report individual progress and whole classroom curriculum experiences by verbal explanation in a progress report frame. The format of the progress report frame is consistent throughout the intermediate or primary classrooms. Guidelines and examples are reviewed periodically by the staff.

The short answer is that written language doesn’t encode sounds, it encodes meanings.  The basic unit of meaning is not the phoneme, it is the word.  And not only that, it is the word in context, which is the only way to tell whether is ‘ball’ is something to bounce, a high degree of fun, or a social event for which one ought to dress up. Teaching students to attend strictly to the sounds that letters ‘make’ (a generalization that has as many exceptions as it does rules) invites them to ignore other critical cues to meaning, and it slows down the reading process for exactly those students who are already struggling the most.

The fact is that learning to read teaches phonics far more effectively than learning phonics teaches reading.  This is in part because it is impossible to know which phonics ‘rules’ to apply to a word until after you already know how the word is pronounced!  Researchers have identified a total of 166 phonics ‘rules’ that are necessary to explain the spellings of the words that are typical to the vocabularies of 6-to-9-year-olds.  Seventy-nine of these rules apply to just the vowel sounds!  Does anyone really teach phonics?

A few simple observations regarding beginning, middle and ending sounds of words are as much phonics instruction as is needed for the vast majority of those students who need any at all.  Most students will successfully infer those from having spend hours being read to and reading with a caring adult.  The more a student struggles, the more they are in need of broader, not narrower strategies and experiences in reading.  To assail struggling readers with even more intensive study of nonsense ‘sounds’ simply guarantees that their struggles will be prolonged.

The CCS staff has tremendous expertise (half of the primary staff are licensed reading specialists!) and impressive success with the teaching of reading.  They aren’t leaving out anything that matters.  Their methods are proven, particularly with regard to students who struggle with learning to read.  This is not an ideological battle for them, it is just good practice with a proven track record.

Teachers may have individual preferences, but email is the best way to communicate with your child’s teacher. Other avenues are a phone message or a written note.

Corbett School District (CSD) graduates are well prepared to compete in the highly competitive university admission process. The average CSD graduate takes between 11 and 12 AP courses in their career; this places the average graduate well into the 99th percentile amongst all graduates in the country with regard to AP participation. A list of some of the universities and colleges recent graduates have attended includes: MHCC, OSU, U of O, Portland State, University of Portland, George Fox University, Linfield, Western Oregon University, Eastern Oregon University, Boise State, University of Washington, Western Washington University, USC, Columbia, Harvard, Vasser, Brown, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Willamette University, and many others. When students apply themselves at CSD there are no universities for which they are unprepared to seek admission. Each year students leave CSD with full ride offers from universities across the country.

Always contact your child’s classroom teacher with any initial concerns. DeeDee Hanes, the District Special Education Director, can be contacted at 503-261-4245, or through our contact form.

Corbett Charter School represents one of the best college preparatory opportunities in the country.  In May, 2011, The Washington Post ranked Corbett Charter School third in the nation. But for Corbett Charter School, the quality starts much earlier than our award-winning high school program.

We have put tremendous time an energy into the design and implementation of Corbett Charter School.  Our school is purposeful from beginning to end.

Although our approach to education is a far cry from the scientifically-managed, skill-driven, test-prep orientation that constitutes the agenda for many schools, our test results are consistently impressive at the elementary and middle school levels, and extraordinary at the high school. Great test results are a by-product and not a focus of our schooling. Education is simply too important to be given over to the testing industry. We are happy that people appreciate our test scores, but test scores have no role in our planning or in our delivery of instruction. Our purpose is to educate, and not to train.

We believe that there is a fundamental difference between education and training. As a result of a great education, individuals become more and more unique…more and more ‘who they are’. Training, on the other hand, tends to make people more and more alike. Training wants identical outcomes for every student: ‘all students will…’. Education fosters the development of intellectual tools to the end that each student is capable of making judgments, setting priorities, and creating something new in the world. Training can only ever replicate what is already done, already known, already thought. Training is good and necessary. But education needs to take us further than the limits of training. What do we call the ability to move beyond what is already done? Imagination. Imagination backed by substantial learning is how the future is created.

We begin each unit of study with an experience designed to create emotional engagement in the topic of study. The means for creating emotional engagement varies with the ages of the students, but this is our goal from primary rooms to senior high school.

We intend that our classrooms be places of joy in learning about the world and that our days include a celebration of the opportunity to learn together. We do not bring children together so that they can learn in isolation. Particularly in the early grades, there is a strong emphasis on common activities where each student brings away a unique benefit even while all are engaged in the same work.

One of the insights of Imaginative Education is that students of varying ages are attracted to a topic through different avenues, as their emotional and intellectual landscape changes in predictable ways as they mature. This is why our Primary classrooms are celebrations of oral language, while our Intermediate program emphasizes literacy. The move from oral to written language is not just a matter of skill development, it is a question of how students, at different ages, most enthusiastically and effective engage the world.

Corbett Charter School values the arts. We have championed the expansion of the music program so that every student has access to general music or to band from the fourth grade though graduation. The most casual visit to any of our buildings will provide ample evidence that the visual arts receive similar emphasis, culminating in a variety of Advanced Placement Art options at the high school level.

Corbett Charter School avoids the trap of grade-level practices, grade-level standards, and grade-level segregation. These practices have always been administrative conveniences with no basis in pedagogy, and we have learned from years of practice that multi-age classrooms are simply more effective. This is a practice that Corbett School District embraced over a decade ago, and it is the configuration under which those students who are setting new standards for high school achievement were educated during their elementary and middle school years. The advantages of multiage practice are well documented outside of Corbett as well.

Corbett Middle School, of which Corbett Charter School is an integrated part, is still Oregon’s only Middle School to Watch. It gained that designation by exemplifying what the national community of Middle Level practitioners judge to be best practice. Ironically, best practice is so rarely implemented that the National Middle Level Association created a special recognition program for those instances in which it occurs. What characterizes the middle school experience? Multi-age classrooms, multiple years with the same teacher, generalist teachers who are highly qualified to teach across the curriculum and therefor to integrate studies in broad thematic units, and an unparalleled sense of community shared by students and staff members alike.

Ninth grade in Corbett Charter School is an utterly unique experience. Students are assigned a home-room teacher who delivers instruction in AP Human Geography, AP Environmental Science, English and Spanish. Students travel to various teachers for math (depending on their level, which ranges from Algebra I to Calculus) and for P.E. or Fine Arts. One teacher has primary responsibility for each student’s entire school experience and has that student in class for a minimum of three periods (and a maximum of five periods) each day. This level of support is unparalleled in our experience. The result? Last year over half of Corbett Charter School 9^th graders earned college credit as the result of passing Advanced Placement exams. Over a quarter of the class passed two exams.

No.  Corbett Charter School is a free, public school.

CCS students are eligible for Free and Reduced lunches if the families qualify by virtue of income.

Applications are available during registration and can be picked up during the year at any of the school offices.

Each year Corbett Charter School opens its online application process.  The window opens in early December and extends through the end of January.  If the number of students applying for a grade level exceeds the space available, a lottery system is used to determine acceptance.  First priority for admission is given to residents of Corbett School District.  The second priority is given to out-of-district students with one or more siblings already enrolled in Corbett Charter School.  The final round of the lottery is for all other applicants.

Students who do not gain immediate admission are placed on a numbered wait list.  Students on the wait list are offered admission as spaces become available by grade level.

Corbett Charter School respects children as moral agents, capable of making choices and of determining, to large degree, their own behavior. While we are aware of those who disagree with us, we remain committed to holding children responsible, while taking into account their ages and abilities, for following school rules, complying with the directions of their teachers and other staff members, and for refraining from negatively impacting their classmates by verbal or physical means.

We do not punish students. We don’t “make” children behave, and we don’t see that as our proper role. When we take disciplinary action it is for the purpose of educating students…most often to teach the basics of how one behaves in school, in a group, around other students, or with respect to adults. These are not ethical judgments on our part. They are simply the necessary conditions for schooling to happen, for our classrooms to function. So students may, on occasion, be temporarily removed from the classroom. In many cases this action is sufficient to signal to students how it is that they must comport themselves. In cases of persistent misbehavior or extreme misconduct (hitting, defying authority), teachers may contact parents to remove a student for the remainder of a school day or, if necessary, for an additional day. The purpose of this time away is to give parents and students the opportunity to establish family expectations for school conduct. We rely on parents to be the backbone of the school culture; the source of our most fundamental expectations. Students returning after a period of removal are never ‘in the doghouse’. It is a clean slate and we will greet them with enthusiasm upon their return. Such removals are not part of any permanent disciplinary record. Nothing will go in a permanent file without the parents’ knowledge. For purposes of quality control, an administrator will always be made aware of such removals.

Oregon public schools are required by law to report student progress annually.  We do something more than that!

For students in grades K through 8, parents receive narrative progress reports three times each year.  The reports describe both the curriculum and the concrete progress made by each student with regard to both reading and mathematics.  No letter grades are assigned.

At the high school level, students receive grade reports for each class six times a year.  For some classes it is possible to research progress online more frequently than six times each year, but our strong recommendation is that students focus on doing their assigned work to the best of their ability and preparing diligently for upcoming exams.  This alleviates the need for agonizing over daily percentage points…an ironically pointless enterprise!

Yes.

Corbett Charter School places a strong emphasis on educating students about their local environment.  Our Columbia River Gorge studies offer extensive experience through classroom activities as well as multiple field trips throughout the K-8 experience.  In 9th grade all CCS students take Advanced Placement Environmental Science.  Our commitment to environmental education is beyond question.

Multnomah County’s Outdoor School program is a wonderful experience, designed initially to allow urban students to get out and see first-hand the wonders of the natural world in our very own region.  Some of the sites used by Outdoor School are in Corbett!  While we agree that this fills a significant gap in the experience of many thousands of children who attend urban schools around the tri-county area, we believe that we provide that experience across several years of schooling, culminating in a required college-level course and including multiple overnight field experiences during middle school.

So while we do not judge Outdoor School to be critical to the mission of Corbett Charter School, we do intend to afford this opportunity for as long as resources allow.

We understand the urgent interest that everyone has with regard to teacher assignments.  We also remember the days when we learned such things on the first day of school!  We encourage parents to assure their children that the new year (and perhaps the new school) will be a wonderful experience regardless of who the teacher is and to counsel patience.

Parents will receive notice regarding classroom assignments in late August each year.  At the elementary level, this will be at a back-t0-school event the week before school starts.  Why so late?  Class lists are highly dynamic, especially in charter schools, and CCS doesn’t want to publish false information, causing confusion and stress for students when it has to be changed at a later date.  It is not just a matter of who the teacher is, but there is also excitement and anxiety about classmates, best friends, etc., so a single change can affect a number of students.

So we will allow the anticipation to build some, and everyone will be informed at the same time.

No. But our students certainly do learn to write and to do math.  Writing and doing math are specialized instances of  thinking well, and we excel at teaching students to think well.  The current national preoccupation with ‘the basics’ is the foundation of every failing school in America.  Everybody is focusing on the basics.  The results are not impressive.

Students who learn to speak, to listen, to play games, to solve puzzles, to create new metaphors, to tell stories…these are children with something to write about and a powerful desire to learn.  They master ‘the basics’ without much fuss on their way to doing really interesting things.  The basics are, in a word, boring.

The cognitive tools related to Philosophic Understanding are apparent at CCS because they are embedded in coursework that is based in disciplines.  Philosophic Understanding involves a focus on theory and on systems of thought.  Students in the Philosophic stage are interested in the big picture, in how bits of information fit together, and in how they can be summarized and captured in a single theory.  The teachers’ project in this environment is both to support the efforts of students to think in terms of theory and to introduce the occasional anomaly that forces a student to further reflect upon and refine their thinking.