A group of parents and teachers from Soldotna Elementary School want to start a charter school. If approved, the new K-6 program would essentially replace organizers’ existing school and comes ahead of consolidation plans.
Ben Cheah is the parent of a Soldotna Elementary student and also chairs the charter’s governing group, or Academic Policy Committee. The committee includes four other parents and two Soldotna Elementary employees. He says the charter is the result of tumult Soldotna schools have faced in recent years.
“The early conversations grew out of concerns about school mergers, uncertainty and preserving the existing community,” he said. “And we began by asking families and staff what they wanted to protect and improve.”
The group is proposing to open a kindergarten through sixth-grade charter school in the existing elementary school building – or what it’s calling a “conversion charter” school. The school would automatically enroll K-6 students living in the existing attendance area instead of using a lottery enrollment system.
Some committee members Monday questioned whether charter schools are allowed to implement a boundary-based enrollment system. The charter group said it confirmed with the state that it is allowed.
The group is proposing an academic curriculum that prioritizes science, technology, engineering and art, with three dedicated specialized teachers for science, music and physical education. The group says social and emotional learning and existing community partnerships would also be emphasized.
Cheah says those priorities are informed by an ongoing survey of families representing, so far, approximately a fifth of prospective charter school attendees. But he says respondents were also concerned about how a charter program could create barriers for students.
A recent surge of interest in charter schools has also highlighted ways those schools differ from other public schools. Other Kenai Peninsula charter schools, for example, do not provide school buses or serve student meals.
“Alaska-based research has found that charter schools typically serve a lower share of economically disadvantaged students than neighborhood or boundary schools,” Cheah said. “Our goal with this charter school is to reduce barriers to entry for families, not increase them.”
As of October 2026, the borough and school district plan to combine Soldotna Elementary with Redoubt Elementary.
That wasn’t always the plan.
Four years ago, Kenai Peninsula voters overwhelmingly approved a $65.5 million bond package that included a variety of projects at schools around the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. The most expensive project in the bond was the reconstruction of Soldotna Elementary School.
But now, that reconstruction isn’t happening. After the bond passed, the Kenai Peninsula Borough, which owns and maintains school district buildings, said costs shot up. The money approved by voters was no longer enough to pay for the bond projects, the borough said.
So, the borough is embarking on what it says is a more affordable project: refurbishing the vacant Soldotna Prep School building for elementary students. As passed, the bond would have remodeled the prep building for multiple other district programs, including River City Academy, Soldotna Montessori Charter School and Connections Homeschool.
Under a contract awarded earlier this year, the new plan is to combine Soldotna Elementary and Redoubt Elementary – another Soldotna school – into the prep building. Students from Sterling and Tustumena elementary schools will end up at the Prep School, too, after the school board voted to close those facilities amid budget cuts and some students enrolled at other Soldotna schools.
Kaiti Syverson is the charter group’s vice chair. She says families from Soldotna and Redoubt are worried about overcrowding.
“That is a big concern from the families I have talked to,” she said. “Once you start getting to where you have that many students in a school, families are very concerned about the elementary experience their children are going to have.”
Superintendent Clayon Holland later announced the borough and district now plan to use Soldotna Prep School for younger elementary school students and keep older elementary students at Redoubt.
Kelley Cizek sits on the school board group tasked with oversight of charter schools. She says the charter proposal could exacerbate an already-busy time for Soldotna schools. And she was one of multiple members to flag the group’s proposal to use the existing school building.
“One of the reasons why we're kind of in this situation with Soldotna Elementary right now in the first place is because there's issues with the building, and so you guys have it within your charter to use the same building in the same capacity,” she said.
Soldotna Elementary was built in 1960. When the school maintenance bond was put before voters, staff explained the building is so old as to be cost prohibitive for major maintenance. The then-principal highlighted an unconventional heating system, trees growing on the roof, unusable wall-mounted lunch tables, broken insulation panels, lack of a uniform building foundation and limits on accommodations for students with disabilities.
The Soldotna Elementary charter group says the building still gets regular maintenance and that it would be open to another facility if needed. As proposed, the charter group wants to be up and running for the 2027-2028 school year.
Holland says there have been talks between the district and borough of partially demolishing Soldotna Elementary once it’s no longer being used as a school. And he says Soldotna Montessori, which also uses the building, would get first dibs if the district made the space available.
There’s precedent for what the charter group wants. After school board members closed the K-12 school in the Russian Old Believer village of Nikolaevsk, the community successfully reopened the building as a charter school. And community members in Kasilof have expressed interest in that type of arrangement for the shuttered Tustumena Elementary School.
All charter school proposals are subject to approval by the full school board and by state education officials. Local committee members agreed to convene again later this month to continue discussing the charter proposal.
