FALA starting school year with new leadership structure and initiatives

Over the summer and the months since those events, FALA's leadership has been working on a variety of changes at the school that are meant to create "a more rigorous academic focus on leadership" and increase teacher and student input as it starts its "new chapter."

“It’s the perfect storm between COVID and the challenges that FALA experienced last year,” said Kara Kelty, who recently transitioned from school improvement specialist to head of school. “It’s really a time to realign the organization to meet educational and art objectives and really create a school culture that’s meaningful. We all know that FALA’s a very unique institution and we’re dedicated to ensuring this is an option for students in Flagstaff and Coconino County."

Leadership structure

FALA has adopted a form of the teacher-powered school model, led by Kelty as head of school and Janeece Henes as director of curriculum and instruction, with a leadership committee made of teachers that provides recommendations to take to the board on items like schedule, salary and the leadership structure.

“It puts the educators as leaders in the school,” Kelty said of the approach.

The school was led by an executive director and a dean until the 2019-2020 school year, when it switched to a teacher-powered model, with department chairs in place of the dean position.

Though the structure has changed, FALA is still operating under that teacher-powered model, with Henes meeting teachers and visiting schools that use the model for better implementation. Instead, the shift to head of school and curriculum and instruction director is meant as a departure from more traditional nonprofit structures and to increase the emphasis on education.

“It’s been an ongoing process,” Henes said. “We’ve had many iterations where we would have some sort of directors and teacher leads. …This year, we’re trying out another new model, but students are always at the heart of the decisions that we make. That’s why we push to empower and wish to involve our teachers, because they know best the needs of the students."

“Teachers are the subject content experts, but also the practitioners, and we want to retain good teachers in order to provide a sustainable experience for students,” Kelty added. “So it makes perfect sense that teachers would have influence and autonomy into both school culture and operations."

Kelty is switching from her temporary role as a school improvement specialist, which she began in January. FALA is now the third school she’s led, in addition to serving on FUSD’s board and the Flagstaff City Council.

“My goal as the school improvement specialist was to provide observations based on my expertise and provide some recommendations based on the best long-term interests of the FALA community,” Kelty said of her taking the permanent position. “I wasn’t comfortable leaving yet until I felt like there was stabilization and excitement. “

Henes is returning to FALA after a year teaching at NAU and had previously taught at the school since 1998.

She said her role included “meeting with teachers, making sure they have all the curriculum support that they need to teach their classes, aligning them with our Arizona state standards, integrating our core values….[and] service learning into the curriculum.”

The new structure originally also included a director of operations, J.B. DeWitt, but the board accepted his resignation in its Aug. 28 meeting. According to Kelty, DeWitt left because the role did not fit his career goals and the position is not being filled due to budget constraints based on enrollment. The main task that role would have filled, she said, was community outreach, which she will be taking on in part. She has also assumed the role's other essential duties in the interim.

The board's discussion of that resignation was held in executive session, though temporary staffing solutions in response were discussed in an earlier item. FALA will be contracting maintenance and HR operations in a part-time onsite position until October, when the board is expected to discuss a longer term solution while updating the budget.

All but one of FALA's board members (the exception is current president Andy Bessler) have joined the board since the events of this winter, with two starting in January. The two most recent additions are Sanjam Ahluwalia and Elise Vicente, both parents of FALA students.

Henes said she hopes to increase parent involvement at the school, through efforts like its parent volunteer corps and possibly resuming a parent advisory council.

Student representation

The board will also be adding an ex-officio role this school year, to be held by a FALA student. This role was developed in part in response to a recommendation from a student committee, with the hope of increasing student representation and input into board discussions.

While the student member will not be able to vote on the board or attend executive sessions due to their age, they will be able to participate in board discussions outside of the three-minute comment time given members of the public. A proxy will also be chosen to fill in as student representative when the ex-officio member is unable to attend meetings.

The member will be elected by FALA students (in the next few weeks for this school year and in second semester for future years) and will serve a one-year term, attending student steering committee meetings as well as the board meetings to ensure they are representing the student body’s needs to the board.

FALA juniors Aneeka Bippus, Ynara Halaberda and Nate Spangler were on the committee that helped develop this role.

Spangler said the idea of a student ex-officio member began in the spring.

“It was very, very hectic and I personally saw a lot of deficits in accountability and student representation," he said of his reason for joining the committee. "I didn’t expect that this would be any kind of magical solution, but I thought it would be better than nothing…another tool in the toolbox.”

Halaberda added: “Students weren’t being represented in board decisions and this position would allow them to speak at least, make sure that the board hears them, rather than just acknowledging it but not really listening -- at least that’s what it felt like. Just to ensure that more student voice is taken into account.”

Henes said having students represented on the board has been a goal at the school for years.

“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “...The board really needs to hear from our students, they really need to have that perspective."

The student committee members said it was too early to tell what effect the ex-officio position and other changes would have on FALA. Their current focus is on making sure students know the position exists and what role it will play on the board.

“Since it’s the very first year we’ve had for this position, it’s an opportunity to define that role and see how it can work and what goals it has and how it affects the student body,” Bippus said. “I’m excited to see how that turns out.”

“We’re starting this year better than we finished the last one,” Spangler added. “...I’m excited, and at the same time, very curious to see how a lot of these new changes work out, as well as how well student input is taken into account. We have had a lot of changes in structures on the board and staff and personnel.”

Enrollment and hiring

Declining student enrollment was cited as one of the causes of this winter's events, which in turn led to the departure of several staff. According to its leaders, student enrollment is lower this year than last year while the school is fully staffed.

“FALA has a lot to offer and last year I know was challenging for a lot in the community,” Kelty said. “It’s a testament to the strength of this community that so many students, so many teachers chose to stay, because frankly I think sometimes it’s easier to walk away than to rebuild.”

The school’s current enrollment is down from the previous year -- a total of 205 students, Kelty said in Monday's meeting, compared to 287 in a report from Sept. 2022. While that means a decreased budget (this is why the director of operations position is on pause, for example), Kelty said the school is “stable” and not likely to close anytime soon.

She also noted that the school had enrolled another five students in the past week.

“I know there are rumors in the community still that FALA’s closing, so I recognize as a parent it would feel like a risk to enroll your child at a school that you’re afraid is going to close and so our walkaway message is that we’re still here," Kelty said.

The board heard a presentation from member Jim Burton on Monday about the impacts its lower enrollment could have on the budget.

"When we develop a budget, it's an annual budget, so it factors in a lot of things over a year, but when it comes down to it, it's our monthly budget that matters and that we have to be super cognizant of," he said. "...What happened last year was a huge reserve got cut into throughout the duration of the fall until it ended up going negative and accumulating the vast amount of unpaid bills we have."

He added: "The monthly is what matters. If we can balance the monthly, we're going to be good. If we can't balance the monthly, we're going to be in trouble."

Each month, he said, the school has about $20,000 more in deposits than it spends in payroll and bills. 

Those deposits -- state aid from the Arizona Department of Education and classroom site funds -- are expected to decrease on Sept. 22 because of FALA's declining enrollment. In October, Burton said he estimated FALA would net around $8,000, a number he expected to continue to decrease in future months.

"It's going to continue to eat away and get less and less and less as we go on," he said. "...We have a little bit of time, is what I'm getting at, but we will probably have to make some decisions. I don't believe we have to make those decisions immediately and we may have some opportunities in grant funds and stuff to be able to navigate our way through this without making really hard decisions, but there are a number of things that are against us right now."

The school’s staffing needs are completely covered, Kelty said, with no open positions and one teacher returning from sabbatical to help out (two positions -- an ESS paraprofessional and middle school science teacher -- were listed on the website as of Aug. 25).

“We’re down to the nitty gritty of working with the people who are really committed to being here,” Kelty said. “We walked away from our in-service training before school started really positive, feeling like everyone was committed, high level of professional standards.”

Music and dance teacher Betsy Hamill also expressed optimism about the school's direction.

"The arts reflect life. Life has been challenging in the last few years," she said. "This is an art school. It is also a leadership school. But the students and the faculty and life at large have been reflecting what's been happening across the world. So yes, FALA has gone through some challenges, but now we're making beautiful art."

Curriculum additions

FALA has rearranged its student schedules to include 20 minutes of a daily leadership institute for its students at all grade levels. It is developing a leadership curriculum based on Stephen Covey's Leader in Me program, as well as giving students time in school for club duties, if they have them.

Last Thursday, for example, the students were taking a survey and discussing the role influence can play in leadership.

Kelty said the idea is to incorporate more leadership into FALA’s teaching, in part as a response to the pandemic’s effects on students. Students at the school had also requested more time during the school day for club activities, which this time can be used for two days each week.

“I thought it was important to have a grounding in what does the evolution of leadership look like, how do we apply it and how do we facilitate skill development in students from middle to high school. …Also to remediate some of the post-COVID impact in terms of the ability to resolve conflict, to advocate for yourself.”

More about FALA can be found at flagarts.com.