When the middle school opened its 2005-06 school year on Sept. 6, the school was at capacity, with 950 students.

The majority of its population feeds in from the Cambrian School District's elementary schools--Sartorette, Farnham, Fammatre and Bagby. But 20 percent of the students are from outside the district and the school maintains a waiting list of more than 20 students.

"We're a place people want to come to," Ida Price Principal Deb Negrete says. "It's a testament to the district and the school."

Teacher Julie Johnston, who grew up in the neighborhood, said Price was once known as a place rife with disciplinary problems. The school's bad reputation was the reason her parents sent her to private school. But times have changed, she says.

By the time she came to teach at the school in the early 1990s, a new administration had shaped the school into a California Distinguished School. Negrete took over the reins in 1997 after working at Farnham Elementary School.

"The school has turned around and then some," Johnston says.

Today, the school offers a variety of programs including elementary to middle school transition, anti-bullying, accountability testing, seventh and zero periods and a variety of electives. The school also has a robust music and athletic program, and an after-school homework center.

But declining enrollment in 2002 threatened to weaken these programs, seventh-grade science teacher Charlotte Peck says. The decline in enrollment was blamed on the economy, which forced many families out of the area. Fewer students meant less funding, since that is tied to per-child enrollment in the district. This, coupled with cutbacks in the state budget, made interdistrict transfers a sticky issue.

Peck says Price accepted a number of interdistrict transfers for many years. All transfers, however, needed approval from both the Cambrian School District and the student's home district each school year.

When school enrollment dropped throughout the area, Cambrian officials say they saw more transfers being denied by students' home districts. Often, students who had attended Cambrian schools for their elementary years were not allowed to matriculate into Price, Cambrian superintendent Barry Groves says.

Groves says the interdistrict transfer process frustrated parents, whose children sometimes had to leave their friends and start over in a new district.

In response, Peck and her colleagues looked to their sister school, Sartorette, for ideas. Sartorette had a similar enrollment dilemma until it became a charter school in 2002.

Because transfer students did not need the approval of their home district to attend a charter school, Sartorette was able to stabilize enrollment and, therefore, dollars. These dollars are needed to maintain school programs, Peck says.

Sartorette's change in status cleared the path for other Cambrian schools to become charters.

"We wanted to look and see how the first charter school worked and if the staff [at other schools] was interested we would listen and accommodate that interest," Groves says.

Back to school

A charter school is a publicly funded institution that can be tailored to suit a community's needs. Each school drafts a "charter," or contract, with a school district, county or state stating its goals and operating procedures.

All charters are held to the same testing standards as public schools but enjoy a certain amount of freedom from educational code. For example, when a public school needs to purchase supplemental materials for a class, the district can only purchase items pre-approved by the state. Charter schools have the freedom to purchase any applicable instructional materials. Money that would be normally earmarked for books pre-approved by the state can be used to purchase computer software under the parameters of a charter school, Groves says.

"The money was more available to support our elective programs and support our school," Peck adds.

There are also other differences. Some facilities, such as Sherman Oaks Charter School in the Campbell Union School District, are run independently and choose their curriculum and programs apart from the district. Cambrian's charter schools, however, are dependent on the district, which manages their budget and programs.

When Sartorette switched to charter school status, it piqued the interest of Price and Farnham and helped set things in motion.

Price's decision to become a charter school resolved two major hurdles: It would stabilize enrollment at Price and accommodate the Sartorette students who wanted to stay in Cambrian district through middle school.

"We've had these kids entering middle school and we might lose them," Peck says.

Price held several informational nights for parents and teachers to discuss the charter school option, Negrete says. Teachers were worried about their contracts and parents wanted to know if the charter would dilute the school's high standards.

The school's leadership team and the school site council worked to draft a charter petition in the fall of 2002. Peck, her colleagues and parents drafted a charter outlining the school's goals, using Sartorette and San Carlos School District's charters as a guide. The Cambrian Board of Trustees approved the charter in April 2003. The state Board of Education approved the charter that July and Price began operating as a charter school in 2003-04.

Farnham also became a charter school that year and Fammatre became a charter school in 2004-05. Groves says the district's remaining school, Bagby, is considering becoming the move as well.

Shift in thinking

The transition to charter status at Price has been seamless for parents and teachers, they say.

Mattie Alesi, who has taught language arts for five years at Price, says she is impressed with Price's commitment to developing thinkers and individuals who are tolerant of differences.

"My responsibility to them is to prepare them for eighth grade and to prepare them for life," she says.

Stu Price, father of three, says he likes "everything" about the school. As a high-tech consultant who travels often, Price says he stays involved with his children's education by serving on the school site council. (Price is not related to the school's namesake Ida Price or her family.)

Price credits Negrete's leadership and the school's passionate teachers for making the middle school successful. "[Mrs. Negrete] doesn't manage, she leads by example of what she wants to see," he says.

Another school site council member, Rhonda Gerhardt, says she and her two sons enjoy all the "perks" provided by the middle school.

Gerhardt says she appreciates that the school provides an extra set of core curriculum books so students can leave a copy at home, and not have to carry the books during the school day. She also likes the idea that the school creates fundraisers geared toward the entire family, such as Bingo.

The school's wide array of electives is a shining example of what education should strive toward, Gerhardt says. These are the added components in a school that create a well-rounded individual. She cites the range of electives at Price from vocational technology to music.

"I was amazed that both of my boys wanted cooking class," Gerhardt says. "They're always baking and cleaning up for me, which is really good."

Her oldest, Christopher, is now a freshman at Branham High School and has been able to move beyond basic math and language classes because of Price's core curriculum, Gerhardt says.

Accelerated math classes in middle school allowed him to skip freshman math and go directly into geometry. His two years of Spanish at Price enable him to start out in Spanish II as a freshman at Branham, she says.

"We're spoiled," Gerhardt says. "We do have a lot of extra stuff."