Charter School adds off-site kindergarten

Green Valley Charter School is beginning its fourth year by expanding its campus.

The kindergarten through sixth-grade school expands by a grade level each year, which has caused it to branch out from the portable facilities it occupies at R.M. Miano Elementary School on B Street. Green Valley, a Waldorf-inspired public school, now has its blended kindergarten and transitional kindergarten located in a small home it is leasing on Center Avenue.

“It definitely has shown how we’ve grown,” said Tisha Blackwood-Freitas, founder and director of Green Valley Charter School. “When we were doing admissions for this year we realized we were going to have to open two kindergartens. We’ve been working on trying to find a facility for the last five years really, prior to opening. We don’t want to keep imposing on the Miano school site so we looked elsewhere and this presented itself to us.”

The new facility accommodates morning and afternoon classes featuring a combined 33 kindergartners. Green Valley’s first through sixth grades remain at Miano. The charter school, which plans to be a kindergarten through eighth-grade facility by the 2017-18 school year, has increased from 75 students when it opened in 2012 to 178 students this week.

“As far as the Miano site, we always knew we could only grow so much without being intrusive to the district,” Blackwood-Freitas said.

She said she is still searching for commercial sites where Green Valley can be relocated until funding becomes available for the charter school to build a facility.

The converted oversized classroom on Center Avenue is working well, according to kindergarten teacher Julia Capocelli.

“The children have their own space without the hustle and bustle of the older grades; it’s very peaceful,” Capocelli said.

According to the school’s kindergarten curriculum, before the school year ends the children will learn qualities of numbers, measuring through baking and cooking exercises, and arts and crafts skills. They also will be introduced to Spanish.

Green Valley Charter School has tried to blend in with the community since it opened. A little more than a year ago the school opened an office in the downtown area on Sixth Street. Blackwood-Freitas said the off-campus office gives her more space to work and provides an opportunity for the school to be more visible to the public.

The school’s charter petition will be up for renewal next year. Blackwood-Freitas said at that time Green Valley Charter School will have to prove to the Los Banos Unified School District that it has met the goals it listed when its initial petition was approved.

Blackwood-Freitas said she will provide the district with all the information it needs, but increasing enrollment figures by themselves are persuasive.

“The children are speaking for themselves; the growth is speaking,” she said.

Green Valley Charter School is planning an open house for its kindergarten facility Oct. 30.

This story was originally published September 8, 2015 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Charter School adds off-site kindergarten."