School as civic linchpin? Town's writing the book

Westlake counts on academy to spur growth and unite community

By Kent Fischer
The Dallas Morning News

Atop a hill along a lazy country road, past the sprouting mini-mansions and country club, sits what bullish civic leaders say is the future of their little town.

Their hopes ride on Westlake Academy, a new breed of charter school, which will open in September.

The academy is free to the public and will feature an internationally recognized college-prep curriculum. Its principal was recruited from Argentina. Classes will be limited to 16 students, uniforms will be mandatory, and academics – not football – will rule.

It is designed to be a teacher's dream, but educators had nothing to do with it.

The town's mayor and aldermen dreamed the school up, and they're going to run it. They've made Westlake Academy the heart of an effort to transform their amorphous bedroom community into a genuine small town. They want the school to be a point of pride for residents, and they want its academics to be so off-the-charts that parents and businesses will move to the town just for the school.

Nowhere else in Texas – and perhaps the nation – has a municipal government opened a charter school designed to be an engine of economic and community development.

Born in the early 1990s as a conservative effort at improving schools, charter schools were meant to break the public school monopoly and bring competition into an industry where little existed.

"Our primary motivation is one of self-interest," Mayor Scott Bradley said. "We want a top-flight school of our own."

Currently, Westlake, population 207, has no schools. The town, actually, is little more than lines on a map. Wedged between Trophy Club and Southlake, it has no downtown, no town hall, no definable public space. Westlake's children are farmed out to schools in three neighboring districts.

That's why town leaders have placed Westlake Academy at the heart of a $17.35 million municipal complex overlooking rolling ranch land. The facility will house the school, a town hall, a library and a recreation center – everything a small town should have. An old-fashioned village green, a place to hold festivals and school carnivals, will sit in the middle of it all.

"A school, in my opinion, should be the cornerstone of a community," Mr. Bradley said. "That's where our values get passed along, and where a community can inculcate the things that are important: roots, a sense of where you're from."

Heart of the community

Mr. Bradley's desire for a school raises an interesting question: Is a community a community if it doesn't have its own schools?

"It's such a fundamental question," said Roderick Hart, who directs the Institute for Civic Participation at the University of Texas at Austin. "We know that being members of a group is crucial to the development of community ties. Schools, it seems to me, are central to that. They're where parents meet, where kids play and learn."

They're also where children are taught what Dr. Hart calls "civic-mindedness."

Dana Drew knows all about the important role a school can play in a community's spirit. For six years, he's been the principal of Grapevine High School. Mr. Drew said it is impossible to underestimate the pride townsfolk have in their kids and in their town's schools.

"When I first got here, I didn't understand how much tradition means to the people of Grapevine," Mr. Drew said. "That pride makes us competitive. We don't want to feel like we're dragging the town down."

That sort of civic pride is what the leaders of Westlake are shooting for. In fact, Westlake hired its town manager, Trent Petty, away from Grapevine. Mr. Petty said he was lured by the opportunity to help create Westlake Academy. In fact, he will act as the school superintendent. Town aldermen will serve as a school board, and Mr. Bradley is the school's president. The state, however, will pay its bills.

Several years ago, Michelle Corson and her family moved to Southlake for the schools. But when the district cut its Spanish classes and started charging parents for bus service, the Corsons knew they would move again.

This time, they're relocating to Westlake, lured by the promise of Westlake Academy.

"It's such a unique opportunity," said Mrs. Corson, whose two children will attend the school in September. "It's basically a private-school education, in terms of the program and caliber, but it's a public school.

"I like the fact that [Westlake] has a rural feel, yet a sense that there's something exciting underfoot."

Westlake's venture into charter schools isn't unprecedented nationally, but it is exceedingly rare, according to the Center for Education Reform, a pro-charter group based in Washington, D.C.

The city of Pembroke Pines, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale, runs three charter schools. But it started those schools primarily to alleviate classroom crowding in the local school district. The center knew of no other cities that have planned and developed and are running their own charters.

Westlake may be a first for Texas, but it may not be the last. State charter leaders and Westlake officials have been contacted by other Texas towns interested in opening their own charters.

For now, however, nobody is saying where those towns are.

High hopes

The school's architecture is pastoral, with rugged exposed beams, high ceilings and two large stone fireplaces in a commons area. Big windows will allow in plenty of natural light, and the classrooms will be equipped with wireless computer technology.

A full-size gym will double as a town recreation center, and the academy's library will also serve residents. The school has space for public meetings, civic group activities and banquets.

The school is an open-enrollment charter, meaning that it has to accept any child who applies. There were so many applicants this spring for a limited number of spaces that town officials held a lottery to see who got in. The school is set to open Sept. 2 with about 190 kids in grades 1 through 6. More than 80 are on a waiting list.

In time, the school will serve 800 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The academy's charter allows the school to give an enrollment preference to town residents and its employees. Of its initial 190 students, only 10 are from Westlake. Right now, only about 40 school-aged kids live in Westlake, according to the census.

Those numbers, though, are growing.

The Corsons decided to buy a home lot in Westlake specifically to guarantee their children spots in the school. Mrs. Corson was so taken with the school's concept that she signed on as chairwoman of the academy's nonprofit foundation. The group will try and secure an endowment for the school because town leaders don't think its state charter money will cover its operating expenses.

The school will be funded as any other charter. It will receive a per-student allocation from the state, roughly $4,500 per child. The town will not supplement the school's budget with additional public money, Mr. Petty said.

"We're really trying to provide a private-school education at a public-school price," Mrs. Corson said.

Westlake leaders are also counting on the school to help lure businesses to their town. As a result, they designed their school to appeal to the executives working in their town's many corporate offices. Many of those executives have worked around the world and have high expectations for their children's schools.

To that end, town officials are trying to establish Westlake Academy with a curriculum called International Baccalaureate. Developed in Europe, IB is considered among the toughest academic programs in the world. The program is so demanding that many graduates skip their first year of college.

Westlake Academy has not yet nailed down its certification as an IB school, but school designers have set up its early grades to feed that sort of high-caliber program.

Couple the tuition-free IB program with the school's pledge to keep classes small – no more than 16 students – and it's easy to see why Westlake officials think the academy and the town will be attractive for corporate executives and their companies.

And, of course, good schools enhance property values.

"That's one of the reasons why we got really interested in this kind of [charter] arrangement," said Alderman Bill Frey. "It seems like we're paving new roads here."