Charter school falls within Roseville High School
attendance boundaries

BY JAYDYNN SANTOS
[email protected]

The district school board voted in favor of authorizing Century High School’s independent charter. Former Granite Bay High School and current Adelante High School assistant principal Sybil Healy plans to develop a new charter school called Century High School. Healy’s desire to start a new high school began two years ago and is now coming to plan.

Roseville Joint Union High School District’s involvement in the independent charter school extends primarily to documentation and legalities.

“[CHS] is like a separate school district basically, they’re on their own,” RJUHSD superintendent Severson said. “They have to have somebody authorize them, and so that’s what they requested, that our district would authorize their existence.”

Student interactions inspired Healy’s drive to start a school alternative from other traditional schools.

“A lot of [my inspiration] was students,” Healy said. “It was the students I worked with from different sites, Oakmont, Granite Bay, even now at Adelante. There are just some students who don’t fit into the regular school mold to do well and just need different options. The main idea came from students and just talking to them one on one.”

Healy believes the RJUHSD community could benefit from a unique high school that focused on students and learning in a structurally and emotionally supportive community. Students will collaborate and think critically to find solutions for local and global issues.

According to Healy, although CHS is still in the making the school is getting plenty of support from the community, especially parents.

“We have good support from the community, the Roseville community, different businesses and other organizations are interested as well. [We have] pretty strong support,” Healy said. “I actually had a parent send me an email from Natomas saying she’d be interested in sending her son to our school.”

CHS’ classes will be rigorous and will include a lot of “essential questions” and “big ideas.” The graduation requirements for academic classes are four years of math, science, history, foreign language and English.

“Our students will have the minimal requirements to get into CSU and UC,” Healy said. “We have structured our school to provide ongoing supports for each student to ensure that they can meet these strenuous requirements.”

The four core areas students will mostly focus on include Project-Based Learning (PBL), Inquiry Methods, Service Learning and Mentorships. According to Healy, all the four core learning opportunities ensure students will learn different subjects simultaneously, develop a deep understanding of subject matter and have additional opportunities to become more involved with their community.

“The school’s focus is an international one that will develop the following four core areas,” Healy said. “One, integrated globally-focused learning. Two, technology and digital literacy. Three, personalized academic support structure. Four, authentic learning opportunities.”

According to Healy, CHS will strive for a diverse blend of students to build the school’s community and culture, and are also seeking for talented students in the arts.

“We will encourage students from all backgrounds to attend our school,” Healy said.

On Feb. 9 the district board voted to approve CHS to be a new school. The location for CHS will be at the Surewest building on Industrial Avenue, which falls in Roseville High School’s attendance boundaries.

Even though the district has to approve the opening of CHS, they are not in control of the school, but they do have oversight. CHS will mostly be controlled by Healy with the help of her committee.

“We do have to report [to the district] our financial well being that we’re operating, that we’re following all the laws of the state,” Healy said. “They don’t hire our teachers, they don’t tell us what curriculum to teach, they don’t tell us how to structure our school.”

As soon as CHS is launched, Healy will leave her position as an administrator for Adelante to become a Chief Education Officer of the school.

The final step after opening CHS is getting students to attend the school. According to Healy, the largest class size will only contain 25 students.