Healdsburg School gets going

Backers of a new private school in Healdsburg, boosted by a $1 million contribution, are preparing to set up a full campus with portable buildings by the time the school year starts this fall.

The Healdsburg School officially opened last fall with 16 seventh- and eight-graders who meet in two rooms of the Wells Fargo Center just north of Santa Rosa.

But enrollment is expected to quadruple when the startup school, with its emphasis on academic fundamentals and a global approach to learning, opens in new quarters offering a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade curriculum.

School co-founder Jim Schinella, a senior vice president of corporate partnerships for Yahoo, and his psychologist wife, Kristin, were inspired to develop a new school after moving up from Marin several years ago.

"We thought we were going in with eyes wide open when it comes to education. But we found ourselves surprised when we found out how limited the choices were," said Schinella, who has moved back to Silicon Valley but remains on the school board.

For families in the Healdsburg area seeking K-8 options beyond the public schools, there is St. John the Baptist Catholic School. For those willing to commute, the options widen to include the parochial St. Rose, the Summerfield-Waldorf School and Sonoma Country Day School in Santa Rosa.

Schinella said none offered quite the rigorous global and secular curriculum combined with traditional academics that he hoped to find.

"The emphasis of this school really is around delivering a great education to as many people as we can reach by maintaining the lowest cost structure possible," he added.

That means putting more emphasis on recruiting quality teachers at nationally competitive salaries and maintaining a 10-to-1 student-teacher ratio than on pouring money into administration and a showy campus, Schinella said.

The facilities initially will be modest. School officials have signed a five-year lease on 3 acres at 33 Healdsburg Ave., three blocks south of the Plaza. Buildings will be temporary. The school has city approval to bring in nine modular classrooms, an administrative office, a faculty room and a multipurpose room.

The school is emerging at a time when public schools in Healdsburg are struggling with declining enrollment, particularly a loss of white, middle-class families. A looming budget crisis has led to layoff warnings going out to almost a third of the Healdsburg school district's teachers.

Sandi Passalacqua, a veteran educator with both classroom and administrative experience in public and private schools in Sonoma County, is head of the school. She said Healdsburg School founders are sensitive to the problems facing public education. But those problems lie with Sacramento and beyond, she said, and are bigger than a single community's ability to remedy.

"This school was never intended to take anything away. It was meant to add something to the community. I'm a children's advocate," said Passalacqua, who has worked in special education and English as a Second Language programs. Twelve years ago, she organized a volunteer outreach program for second-language learners in Healdsburg public schools.

"I heartily believe I have a passion for educating children and seeing children being promoted in the best possible way with honor and respect. I'm frustrated with what I see going on in the pubic schools, not just here but everywhere."

Founders say they are committed to inclusion by keeping tuition reasonable and offering liberal scholarships. About 20 percent of the students will qualify for assistance, including some full scholarships.

Local Latino and American Indian groups have been approached to let them know about the school and the availability of financial aid, Passalacqua said. Currently the school has an Asian family, several Latino families, and students from Great Britain and New Zealand.

The $10,800-a-year tuition is more than the local Catholic schools but less than the up to $19,000 a year it costs to attend seventh or eighth grade at Sonoma Country Day School. Both Healdsburg and Country Day offer financial assistance.

"Our curriculum and teaching methods take on a global perspective of social responsibility," said Passalacqua, a former principal at St. John's.

Students will begin learning Spanish and Mandarin Chinese in kindergarten.

"We have a very strong national belief," she said. "We also hold that we must be aware of everyone else as citizens of this planet and be respectful. It's all about collaboration, and you can't collaborate well if you can't understand the other person."

Phil Hurst, a small-winery owner whose 13-year-old son, Clay, attends the school, likes the emphasis on preparing kids with strong academics mixed with multiculturalism and a world perspective -- whether it's history, civics or the arts.

"Everyone will agree the world is getting smaller and smaller," he said. "We know what is happening on the other side of the planet instantaneously, and the kids of the future have to be familiar with that."

Clay, who is in seventh grade, is enthusiastic about the hands-on activities and the availability of laptop computers. Every morning, students log on to freerice.com and take a vocabulary quiz, earning 20 grains of rice for people in Africa for every correct answer, he said.

"Or we go to newspapers like the New York Times.com and read about things that are happening around the world."

The school recently got a major financial boost with a $1 million contribution from an undisclosed donor. An additional $1 million has been raised from other sources. The school hopes to reach its capacity of 180 students by the end of its third year.

Although the school is seen as a community school, Schinella said slightly more than half the applications coming in for the fall are from outside Healdsburg, mainly Santa Rosa.

Clay Hurst said the small classes at his new school have made a difference.

"I get way more personal attention now to work on things I need help with," he said. "I needed a little more help with my math skills, and I got more personal attention, so I got a lot better at math."

Contact Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 521-5204 and meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.