A new school is opening in town this fall: Heartland Lakes Community School (HLCS) will open on Tuesday, September 3rd at Riverside United Methodist Church in Park Rapids.
HLCS is chartered by the state as District 4302 and is a free public K-6 program with an emphasis on inquiry-based learning.
“We're going to have multiple age groups,” teacher Elise Erickson said, “Kindergarten will be separate, first grade will be separate, (second and third grade) will be mixed age classes, and this year we'll have fourth through sixth grade.”
Erickson will serve on the faculty committee, a requirement for public charter schools in Minnesota, and will be one of two teachers for grades four through six.
The school is now planning to assign one teacher to each of the other classrooms, plus one special needs teacher, for a total of six teachers.
“We plan to have 89 students in kindergarten through sixth grade,” said Joanna Wallenberg, president of HLCS. Currently, all spots are filled and there is a waiting list, she said. But the school plans to add a seventh-grade class next year and an eighth-grade class the year after.
The school was awarded a five-year, $1.3 million Charter School Programming Grant from the U.S. Department of Education, designed to help open or expand charter schools.
“The statutory purpose of charter schools, which began in Minnesota in the 1990s, is innovation in public education,” Wallenberg said. “It's about offering students a different, innovative way to learn.”
Schools Director Laura Seter added that the diversity of school options enriches the community.
Seter, Wallenberg and Erickson gave The Enterprise a sneak peek at the facilities, which include four grade-level classrooms, a classroom dedicated to special education, administrative offices and a multipurpose room in the church's little-used education wing.
“We're transforming the space,” Wallenberg said, noting that the former choir room will become classrooms for grades 4 through 6. Classrooms for other grades will use the existing Sunday school space, and special education will use the former youth group hangout area.
The school is not affiliated with a church: “We're a public school,” Wallenberg emphasized.
The church's “gym” will be turned into what Wallenberg calls a “room of needs” and will be used for multiple purposes, with bookshelves piled high with books donated by Natawash Community Charter School in Wauburn.
“We haven't bought any books yet outside of the curriculum,” Wallenberg said.
Erickson thanked the families who supported them throughout the four-year start-up process, and there was a family meet-and-greet on Aug. 7. “It was really nice to have all the families and all the students here and feel the energy and the vibe of the kids in the building,” she said.
Wallenberg said he was grateful for the encouragement and support from his family and the community, and was thankful for the many donations and offers of help.
“Riverside has been working really hard to get the space ready,” Erickson added. “It's a major ongoing effort, and it will be ready for the students who will be coming in.”
“A lot of our activities will be outdoors,” Seter said.
Students have free use of the church grounds, which include a pavilion, tee-ball court and community garden.
“They offered to add flower beds for us,” Wallenberg said. “We're definitely going to be gardening.”
Erickson said the school will use a curriculum called “EL Education,” or Exploration Learning.
“Students are given a challenge, an assignment, a project, a problem,” she explained, “that's difficult but within their reach, and then they work together as a class or as a team to come up with a solution.”
For example, the first expedition, aimed at second- and third-graders, will focus on the sun, moon and stars. “We might do fieldwork like going to the planetarium,” Erickson says. “We might collect data on the night sky.”
Teachers try to incorporate all subjects into their classroom explorations, she said: “We want students to see a lot of connections between all the subjects. We want them to understand how all the subjects are interconnected.”
“Building a relationship with nature is important to the growth and education of teachers, administrators and students,” Seter said. “We see ourselves as learners on these expeditions.”
“Spending time outdoors, regardless of the weather, is key to understanding the cycles of nature,” Erickson says, “basics that can be missed when we spend most of our time indoors.”
Erickson said it's the abundant natural environment that draws people to the Heartland Lakes region.
“It was clear that a lot of families wanted to have that kind of experience for their kids,” she said, “perhaps spending more of their school day outdoors. We have such natural resources close to home. What a rich place for educational experiences.”
“There's a lot of data on the benefits of being outdoors for kids and adults,” Wallenberg says. “It benefits everything from mental health to physical health to learning. There's research showing how much better kids retain content when they have classes outdoors, even just math class. So we were excited to try it.”
Noting the region's unique intersection of coniferous, deciduous and grassland biomes, Setar said, “Instead of sitting in the back seat of a car and watching the world go by, they can actually see it. They can identify and name their environment, they can say what it is and ask questions about it. Children's minds are open and they are interested in many things. Is there a way for scholars and for us to guide and nurture that kind of curiosity?”
Lucy Wallenberg, a senior, said she is excited to start life at her new school. “I'm really enjoying being outside a lot and meeting a lot of new people,” she said.
In first grade, Lucy and her siblings attended Apple Blossom Village, a homeschooling co-op in Bemidji, where the innovative learning style was a particular fit for Lucy, Joanna says. “She excelled at tree climbing and making mud balls, and she's excited to do them again.”
Experienced Leadership
“We have a network of colleagues and friends who are doing different education elsewhere,” Wallenberg said, explaining how this all began. Some of the founding school board members had experience and connections in the world of education innovation.
“We're just starting to dream about what it would be like to do something different here,” she said.
Wallenberg grew up in Park Rapids and graduated from Area High School, but returned with a master's in social work in 2010 and worked as a counselor at Century School through Stellar Human Services for 10 years, during which time she also obtained clinical certification to work in mental health.
“I've learned so much from the children and families that I've worked with,” she said. “My learnings are typical, but I've had the privilege of working with families that haven't had that experience. Their learnings were not typical. They had other needs. They taught me that sometimes you need different strategies.”
Wallenberg now works at Peacemaker Resources, a nonprofit in Bemidji that helps area schools, where she gets ideas from schools trying different approaches.
Erickson began his teaching career at a charter school in rural Northfield, “which shaped my outlook and philosophy on education,” he said, recalling many student-interest-driven outdoor activities.
Erickson and her husband moved to the Park Rapids area about 12 years ago, drawn by the area's natural beauty. For the next 10 or 11 years, Erickson worked as a teacher in Park Rapids and neighboring school districts, building networks and thinking about what schools in the area could be like.
Launching HLCS has been a labor of love, she said.
Seter previously served as executive director of Bemidji's Region Arts Council 2, which provided arts funding for the five-county region. She taught in Massachusetts schools for 15 years in the 1990s and early 2000s, during which her children attended a private school that focused on “the outdoors, belonging and family.”
She has a Master's in Education from the School of International Studies in Brattleboro, Vermont, which focuses on community development around the world, and has been involved with Concordia Language Villages since she was 16, teaching German and running programs in Switzerland and Frontenac, Minnesota.
“That was the focus of my mentoring: cultivating curiosity, understanding the communities you're a part of, and finding yourself embedded in the world and culture, not just being a consumer of it,” Seter said.
All of these experiences led her to a school that emphasizes connections and relationship building, where students learn to see themselves both in their local context and as members of the world, she said.
The HCLS Board of Directors meets on the second and (if necessary) fourth Monday of each month at 6pm. For more information, visit heartlandlakescs.org or email info@heartlandlakescs.org.