When the Children’s Museum closed its public gallery in order to begin the joint development-rebuilding project on the Downtown San Diego site, the museum’s administrative offices as well as the 80-student charter school temporarily relocated to the unused annex at the Ohr Shalom Temple near Balboa Park.

And by every meaningful measurement, the Museum Charter School has succeeded, through a combination of progressive educational theories and old-fashioned practices: inspired leadership, a real arts program, and lots of hard work.

The Museum Charter School was launched in 1998 with the stated mission to model a school for developing “lifelong learners.” With multiple grades, this would be a developmental education environment, where students of different ages had the opportunity to learn directly as well as through mentoring others. This would be a student-focused program, with project-oriented experiences through group “departments” and individual projects. Art resources at the Children’s Museum would be leveraged, as would community resources throughout Downtown. The museum school was chartered to be teacher-directed, with decision-making shared with a council that includes parents and students. As a charter school, it would be exempt from Superintendent Alan Bersin’s “Blueprint for Education.” The school was free to develop a curriculum that was not focused solely on improving standardized test scores.

However, as a public charter approved by the school board, the school would still be accountable for demonstrating success by the same metrics everyone else used. In other words, students had the freedom to not study exclusively for the tests, as long as they still passed the tests. It is a leeway that has caused more than a few charter schools to fail, and eventually to rejoin the bulk of district schools and standardized curriculum.

But a funny thing has happened. Even while minimizing the emphasis on testing, devoting time to an enriched and imaginative curriculum has yielded test results that are extraordinary. In the most recently released test results, the Museum Charter School scored an aggregate API score of 825. This is 132 points above the state average score, and a full 114 above that for San Diego City Schools. For the lucky students at this special school, it’s like having the cake, and eating it too.

Responsibility Taught

The opportunities at the Museum School are unique, and so is the diversity of its students. Some who have had difficulties in other public schools have found a learning home at the Museum School, and over the years the school has attracted many formerly home-schooled students. One thing that does not vary is uniformly high expectations of students, particularly in learning to take responsibility for their own education. It’s that “lifelong learner” goal again. And whatever the challenges, attending the Museum School engenders remarkable loyalty. Alumni often return for the graduation ceremonies of their younger friends, and participate in Alumni Nights and even fund-raising events.

To be sure, a charter school is not for everyone. A school as small as this means interacting with a high percentage of the student body and staff. This helps ensure that no one falls through the cracks, and also means there is no real place to hide. While there is no formal requirement for parent participation, their emotional support and encouragement of their children are essential, as is their help with logistics, since there are no school buses and regular attendance is critical to the budget. Fund-raising is an ongoing battle, and not just for a field trip to see the Padres. We’re talking paper and pencils here to support some of the infrastructure students and their parents take for granted at large public schools.

The Opportunity

As a public charter school, attendance at the Museum School is free to 3rd through 6th graders in San Diego County. Admission is by lottery, and there is usually a waiting list to enroll. This year, without the Children’s Museum itself being open to let thousands of visitors know about the school, there has never been a better opportunity to enroll. As a bonus, incoming students should experience the thrill of moving into the brand new Museum School space when the rebuilt museum reopens in 2006, we hope. An enrollment application is available at the school’s Web site: museumschool.sandi.net. Or you can call the school directly at (619) 236-8712.

Special Programs

When the Children’s Museum was open in the adjacent building, students from the charter school participated regularly in the various painting, ceramic, and mosaic classes there. Once the school relocated, the lead art instructor from the museum was contracted to continue working with Museum School students.

The ceramics classes create bowls for the national “Empty Bowls” program, raising funds to assist local hunger organizations.

The downtown dance company Eveoke has been used to teach the students modern dance, and the students have also had instructors teaching Afro-Cuban, Balinese and other styles. Instructors from the Chinese Martial Arts Institute have helped train students in the traditional Green Dragon style of kung fu. (During one term, the assigned instructor was Dat Phan, who later won NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” reality program.)

Music classes have variously included band and orchestra, keyboard, chorus, guitar, Japanese flute, and drum.

The star program at the Museum Charter School is the Balinese gamelan music and dance program. Launched in 2000 with the support of the Center for World Music, the Museum School has offered instruction in Balinese performing arts ever since. A full gamelan is housed at the school, courtesy of legendary world music founder Dr. Robert Brown. The original teacher from Bali named the performance group “Puspa Warsa,” and it is believed to be the only permanent children’s gamelan troupe outside of Indonesia. All students at the Museum School can train to participate as dancers or musicians with this company, which has performed throughout Southern California including programs at the Lyceum Theatre.

Remember that interacting creatively with neighborhood resources is also a goal of the charter. From its Downtown location, the school ended every Friday with children swimming at the YMCA pool.While the school’s on-site library includes a growing collection of student-authored, illustrated, and published books, the main school library was the Downtown public library.

Cooking department projects regularly included a visit to a Downtown restaurant, and parent-coordinated Halloween scavenger hunts were arranged with the shops at Horton Plaza.

From their current temporary site the children have learned to make regular use of closer Balboa Park opportunities, especially the Museum of Natural History Museum of Man, Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and the San Diego Zoo.

Staff Qualifications

Performing and visual arts are thoroughly integrated at the Museum School. Teachers are accomplished professional artists themselves, and the school’s curriculum often adjusts to benefit from staff expertise. The school’s original principal, Carl Hermanns, was a former musical conductor from Broadway, who regularly conducted programs for the San Diego Symphony. His successor, Phil Beaumont, is also a musician who’s been known to spend the vacation break periods performing in tours through the U.S., Europe or Japan. The senior teacher, Gingerlily Lowe-Brisby, is a performer and education director with the Asian Story Theater. Professional credits of the school’s other staff and contracted experts are similarly impressive.