In ecology, a niche refers to a species’ role and position in their environment. Jennifer Walworth and Rose Dickson saw an unoccupied niche in Missoula’s education ecosystem, so Jennifer and Rose, along with Tayleigh Sykes (all devoted, longtime Missoula educators), set out to create a new species of high school.
Clark Fork Prep is a slow-sprouting independent, grassroots, student-centered and teacher-led high school, founded on what Rose identifies as their three pillars: “place-based, small class sizes or student-centered, and academic excellence.”
“We’re all high school teachers, and throughout many years of working in Missoula at the high school level we just noticed that there was a real gap in high school options,” Jennifer says. “At the elementary level, parents have a lot of options. By the time those families hit eighth grade, they really only have two options: a big public school, or private religious school, and we just wanted to have a different option for Missoula families who don’t feel served by the current choices.”
“Something that’s made me kind of sad is how many people we talk to who are planning to send their kids to boarding school or out of Missoula, or even move, because they don’t see a different option,” adds Rose. “Trying to keep Missoula folks in Missoula and have a place where they feel served is important to us.”
In addition to the trifecta guiding Clark Fork Prep’s ethos, they are also driven by a fundamental belief in the innate motivation, intelligence, and potential of high schoolers.
“I think we often sell them short,” Jennifer says, “and see them as ‘just’ teenagers. The phrase ‘teenage wasteland’ comes to mind—but that’s not actually who they are. They’re smart and they’re curious and they’re very, very passionate about a lot of things, but some of those wonderful qualities get lost in a setting where they don’t get to have choice. So one of the things we wanted to do was make sure we were small enough that everybody had choice to be creative and engaged, both teachers and students.”
You may be saying to yourself: this all sounds great in theory, but how does it look in everyday practice?
“We’re really thinking about place-based education in a more holistic way,” Rose says. “How can we connect kids to the landscape—of course, Missoula is beautiful, we can walk to the river from here, Watershed Education Network is right down the street—but also the culture and the amazing local businesses and nonprofits that are here. Can we bring in local artists, can we bring in local entrepreneurs to really show kids what life outside of high school can be, and have really tangible ways into the curriculum.”
“In environmental studies that’s pretty easy,” she continues, “but in English that might look like: Shakespeare in the Parks is doing Othello, so that’s the play we’re going to study. How do we take the wealth of knowledge that’s in Missoula and help kids connect with the material that way.”
In addition to a three-dimensional approach to education, Clark Fork Prep sees smallness as a virtue, a pathway to purposeful engagement with each student and their unique set of interests.
“Once we get those 1, 2, 3, 10 students,” Jennifer says, “we have the luxury then of looking at them and saying, ‘alright, what do you need, what do you want, how can we best serve you and if we can’t, who are we going to get to make that happen?’”
Rose elaborates: “Starting small means we can say, ‘are you into photography? Okay, we can make that happen. You would like to go to Yale? Okay, let’s make sure you have all the credits you need to get into Yale.’ Let’s figure out how to make sure their present is amazing and beautiful, and that they’re set up for their future, whatever that looks like for them.”
“‘Relationship’ is the secret sauce to academic excellence,” Rose continues, “and if you know the kids individually, you know how to help them get to that next step.”
“Trying to keep Missoula folks in Missoula and have a place where they feel served is important to us.”