by John Dowd
Pete Joseph, Corvallis School District Superintendent, is looking forward to the coming year and believes this may be one punctuated by growth and excellence. Joseph met with the Bitterroot Star to speak about the district’s additions and hopes.
The first thing Joseph wanted to highlight was the system’s charter school program, which is only barely getting off the ground, going into its second year. However, though it is new, it has grown by leaps and bounds.
The Corvallis RISE Charter School program came online last year, and offers several pathways students can pursue, which are laid out in detail on the school website under the Charter section.
Corvallis is hitting the highest enrollment ever, with a total enrollment of over 1,600 kids in K-12. Joseph believes this high number has a lot to do with their charter program. According to him, parents and students are loving the flexibility the charter school programs offer. On top of that, the main draw is the unique programs they can develop with charter schools. An example Joseph gave was how students in the charter school programming started their own entrepreneurs club. This is what the superintendent referred to as “project based learning,” and is one of the main driving concepts behind what makes a charter school so powerful.
Another highlighted program came from the cafeteria. Joseph wanted to recognize the Corvallis Schools Food Service Director, Kathy Martin. She received a Montana Farmers Union grant for a hydroponic garden center. This was possible through RISE, and will allow students to get hands-on knowledge about where their food comes from through the Food to Farm pathway in the RISE program. In this project, students will work with staff to grow food that is actually utilized in the school menu and cafeteria food. So far, they are mostly growing herbs like cilantro, thyme and the like, but they are also growing spinach and plan to add more varieties as the project grows.
“Everyone is really excited about the charter school program,” said Joseph. In fact, the RISE program is open to every student in the school system, and they don’t have to completely go “all-in” with the RISE program to take advantage of its opportunities.
There are currently 500 students in the RISE charter program. However, Joseph and staff want to encourage more students to join the program. One of the main draws, according to Joseph, is the calibre of extracurricular offerings attached to the charter school model. The school is working with local companies to help provide internship and apprenticeship opportunities as well as on-the-job training and first-hand knowledge from real trade careers. They are also open to starting any number of clubs or projects students are interested in.
Joseph and staff are also excited about upcoming grant opportunities for the charter school, and those help them hold more of these types of programming. There are many more like the one they received for the hydroponics program with the cafeteria.
For Joseph, it all really comes down to “flexibility in what we’re providing for families. I’m excited to see where that goes.” Those in the charter school program also add to the enrollment of the school. That helps the school increase the funding it receives and helps the district, as a whole. Because of this, they will be able to give their teachers a 7% raise over the next two years.
As far as new district additions go, Joseph wanted to highlight that, new this fall, they will be working through a cooperative sports program with Victor Public Schools. This will help provide sporting opportunities that these students may not be able to have at their home school. This could be due to many factors, including the district not having enough students to have a full team or a lack of funding. All co-op students still need to meet the same standard of academic criteria to be in the sports programs as if they attended Corvallis.
Joseph said that being able to provide these opportunities and help other districts is a huge sign of Corvallis’s success.
“People are involved, which is a good sign for our school district,” said Joseph. “It’s great to reach out and help other schools.”
In the standard Corvallis school programs, Joseph said another thing he is excited about is their music program. He said Corvallis is the only school in the valley with a 5th-12th grade orchestra. He added that this year, 50 percent of the students in Corvallis are going to be involved with performing arts programs.
“Those programs are taking off,” said Joseph, and he hopes they can open even more venues for students to explore these programs.
Finally, Joseph wanted to reiterate their work with state and college standardized testing. Their “Testing Matters” initiative is helping them keep scores up across the district. They shut down three times a year to focus on testing skills, offering pre-ACT practice for 9th and 10th graders and MAST and pre-MAST for K-8 grades.
All in all, looking forward to 2025/2026, Joseph is confident that this school year is set to be a good one.
