April 2014 image from the California Secretary of State website:
See IRS Form 990 Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax
By Ryan McCarthy, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
Aug. 2–One of the school colors will be green, a frog or a hummingbird is expected to be the school mascot and more than 100 students will attend classes Aug. 18 when the new Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy opens in Dobbins.
“This is the next generation that’s going to look after the planet,” Paul McGovern, chief financial officer for the charter school in the Sierra foothills, said of the students.
Five teachers were selected from 65 applicants, said Bruce Helft, executive director of the school whose proposed motto is “Respect and care for others, ourselves and the planet.”
Prospective teachers applied from all over California as well as Alaska and New York, Helft said.
While the job listing was on a Web site, the school asked teaching applicants to mail materials.
“People had to write a cover letter,” he said. “It’s easy to just click buttons.”
The charter academy is ready with textbooks that have cost nearly $50,000.
The site of the new school on Texas Hill Road may be fitting for the educational effort focusing on the environment.
“They call this the hidden Sierra,” Helft said. “There’s no direct route.”
While remote, the school will be wired into the world.
A new T1 computer line has been installed at the school that will provide faster Internet access than DSL, Helft said.
The executive director of the new school said he’s very impressed with the Marysville Joint Unified School District staff.
“They really want us to succeed,” Helft said.
Charter schools are public and supported by taxes. California law provides for charters, an educational reform intended to allow school choices for parent and students.
Contact Appeal reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com
Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/1506885/foothill_school_to_be_green/#OPV783ACY8AXSqpB.99 [ed. - Link defunct]
Aug. 2–One of the school colors will be green, a frog or a hummingbird is expected to be the school mascot and more than 100 students will attend classes Aug. 18 when the new Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy opens in Dobbins.
“This is the next generation that’s going to look after the planet,” Paul McGovern, chief financial officer for the charter school in the Sierra foothills, said of the students.
Five teachers were selected from 65 applicants, said Bruce Helft, executive director of the school whose proposed motto is “Respect and care for others, ourselves and the planet.”
Prospective teachers applied from all over California as well as Alaska and New York, Helft said.
While the job listing was on a Web site, the school asked teaching applicants to mail materials.
“People had to write a cover letter,” he said. “It’s easy to just click buttons.”
The charter academy is ready with textbooks that have cost nearly $50,000.
The site of the new school on Texas Hill Road may be fitting for the educational effort focusing on the environment.
“They call this the hidden Sierra,” Helft said. “There’s no direct route.”
While remote, the school will be wired into the world.
A new T1 computer line has been installed at the school that will provide faster Internet access than DSL, Helft said.
The executive director of the new school said he’s very impressed with the Marysville Joint Unified School District staff.
“They really want us to succeed,” Helft said.
Charter schools are public and supported by taxes. California law provides for charters, an educational reform intended to allow school choices for parent and students.
Contact Appeal reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com
Read more at http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/1506885/foothill_school_to_be_green/#OPV783ACY8AXSqpB.99 [ed. - Link defunct]
A foothills charter school?
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Caption for above: Yuba charter school organizer Bruce Helft stands in front of the Lewis Carrol School in Oregon House, where the proposed Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy would be located if approved. Nick Adams/Appeal-Democrat
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Updated: Sat Nov 2, 2013
By Ryan McCarthy/Appeal-Democrat
Rancher Tom Richards didn't want his 11-year-son to take a daily, two-hour, round-trip bus ride if he went to Loma Rica Elementary School next year – one reason Richards supports the proposed Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy. [ed. Tom Richards owns the 7,000-acre ranch bordering Apollo's southern edge.]
"It's not the 12 miles," Richards, 64, said of the bus trip from the family home in the community of Oregon House. But a school bus working its way through the rural foothills route can turn into a long ride, he said.
Supporters of the charter school proposed for a 10-acre site in Oregon House along Texas Hill Road about 25 miles northeast of Marysville say they'll meet today with Gay Todd, superintendent of the Marysville Joint Unified School District. Trustees for the district will hold a Jan. 8 public hearing on the proposal for the Yuba charter school, which supporters hope to open next fall.
Tax-supported charter schools began in California as a reform effort aimed at providing an alternative to the public school system. Students in the Oregon House area can attend Loma Rica Elementary or Dobbins Elementary public schools.
At the Oregon House post office Tuesday, photographer Amanda Lane, 40, mother of a 5-year-old girl, said her residence hinges on the fate of the Yuba charter school.
"If there is no charter school, I'm moving," Lane said. "I'll either move to Nevada City or the Bay Area."
Many parents in the area are enrolling their children in Nevada County schools and carpooling there, Lane said.
Academics at the proposed Yuba charter school helped sway rancher Richards.
"They're going to get a very good education," he said of the students. Supporters say the K-8 school will take advantage of gardens and local nature reserves.
Bruce Helft, who's organizing the science academy, said charter schools are common in neighboring Nevada County but not in Yuba County, home to a half-dozen such schools.
"I'm not sure exactly why," Helft said. "We're trying to educate the board of trustees of the Marysville district about charter schools. It's about choice for our parents and children.
"Competition is good," Helft added. "It seems to bring people on top of their game."
Dobbins resident Douglas Binderup, 67, owner of an investment company, supports the charter school for the same reason.
"I've long been an advocate of the voucher system in California," Binderup said. "The next best thing is the charter school. California has some of the best teachers in the country. They are strapped with a bureaucracy (in public schools) that numbs their creativity."
Terry McAteeer, Nevada County superintendent of schools from 1994-2007, said support for charter schools "oftentimes comes from affluent parents who want more choice for their children. You get charters started by parents who have time and money."
Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy can be reached at 749-4707. You may e-mail him at rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com.
From redorbit.com [link now defunct]:
Foothill School to Be Green
By Ryan McCarthy, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
August 2, 2008
One of the school colors will be green, a frog or a hummingbird is expected to be the school mascot and more than 100 students will attend classes Aug. 18 when the new Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy opens in Dobbins.
“This is the next generation that’s going to look after the planet,” Paul McGovern, chief financial officer for the charter school in the Sierra foothills, said of the students.
Five teachers were selected from 65 applicants, said Bruce Helft, executive director of the school whose proposed motto is “Respect and care for others, ourselves and the planet.”
Prospective teachers applied from all over California as well as Alaska and New York, Helft said.
While the job listing was on a Web site, the school asked teaching applicants to mail materials.
“People had to write a cover letter,” he said. “It’s easy to just click buttons.”
The charter academy is ready with textbooks that have cost nearly $50,000.
The site of the new school on Texas Hill Road may be fitting for the educational effort focusing on the environment.
“They call this the hidden Sierra,” Helft said. “There’s no direct route.”
While remote, the school will be wired into the world.
A new T1 computer line has been installed at the school that will provide faster Internet access than DSL, Helft said.
The executive director of the new school said he’s very impressed with the Marysville Joint Unified School District staff.
“They really want us to succeed,” Helft said.
Charter schools are public and supported by taxes. California law provides for charters, an educational reform intended to allow school choices for parent and students.
Contact Appeal reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appeal-democrat.com
—–
To see more of the Appeal-Democrat, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.appeal-democrat.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
Hearing on charter school Tuesday
Monday, January 7, 2008 12:00 am
Updated: 9:44 pm, Fri Nov 1, 2013
By Ryan McCarthy/Appeal-Democrat
A public hearing on plans for a charter school in Oregon House will be held Tuesday by Marysville Joint Unified School District trustees.
“We’ve been gathering all kinds of support,” said Bruce Helft, who is organizing the Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy.
The school, proposed for a 10-acre site along Texas Hill Road about 25 miles northeast of Marysville, would serve students from kindergarten through eighth grade and focus on subjects including environmental science and agriculture.
A total of 125 students are projected to enroll the first year, Helft said. If more seek to attend the charter school, a public lottery would be held as called for in the state education code, he said.
Tax-supported charter schools, intended as a reform measure to provide more choice in public education, have a 15-year history in California. About 700 such schools operate in the state.
For more on this story, read Tuesday's Appeal-Democrat or check back online.
No legal help for new charter school
Posted: Saturday, January 31, 2009
Updated: Fri Nov 1, 2013
By Ryan McCarthy/Appeal-Democrat
A new foothills charter school is on its own legally — and may have to provide a defense for the Marysville Joint Unified School District — in a case involving a worker who says he's due $7,302 for projects at the charter school.
That's the message to the Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy from the Folsom-based law firm that represents the Marysville school district.
Attorney Paul Thompson, in a letter this week to environmental academy principal Bruce Helft, said the school district has no obligation to defend the charter academy in the small claims suit filed by Mike Binachini over fence, gate and playground work he undertook at the Dobbins school site.
The contract the charter academy awarded Binachini is invalid because the fence-builder lacks a contractor's license, the attorney said — and so the school district doesn't have to defend the new academy in the legal matter.
Moreover, if the small claims court decides the school district is properly named in the case, the charter academy must provide a defense for the district, Thompson said.
Helft said Friday of the case scheduled for a Feb. 2 hearing in Yuba County Superior Court that, "we'll see where it goes."
He'll await the legal word on whether the school district is part of the case — and said he'll turn to the school community if the charter academy has to represent MJUSD.
"We have a parent who's a lawyer," the school principal said. "I'll ask him if comes to that."
He has said the Marysville school district has told the charter academy no funds will be released to pay for fencing and other work.
The academy is the first independent charter in the school district, Helft noted.
"We have this kind of relationship in the district that is being tested out," Helft said of the academy and school district understanding their respective roles. "We do a lot of things on our own."
The Marysville school district receives nearly $100,000 from the charter academy to provide services such as legal representation, Helft said.
"I'm very impressed with how efficient that district is," the charter school principal said.
Thompson and Gay Todd, superintendent of the Marysville district, could not be reached for comment about the case.
Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Ryan McCarthy at 749-4707 or rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com.
From Plumas Lake Life [ed. - Link no longer active], November 19, 2011:
Over in Yuba County Superior Court, [Fellowship of Friends member] Bruce Helft has a bone to pick with the Yuba Environmental Science Charter Academy.
Helft helped found the charter academy back in 2008 and was its first executive director.
He continued as the executive director until March 2010, when the academy's directors voted not to continue his employment beyond June 2010.
Last month, Helft sued the academy, based in Dobbins/Oregon House, filing a writ and asking a judge to nullify his "termination."
He asserted that the academy's governing board violated the state's opening meeting law (the Brown Act) by holding serial meetings (one director contacting another and so on and so on) to discuss his fate and job performance before deciding in closed session to dismiss him.
The suit says the academy, as stated in its charter, agrees to abide by the Brown Act, just like trustees of the Marysville Joint Unified School District, who have extended the school's charter.
Helft is awaiting a hearing in the case. He's apparently taking this seriously. His lawyers are from Los Angeles.
