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Launched in Portland as a training ground for the next generation of workers for the building industry, ACE Academy is struggling to meet its goals.

The charter school opened in 2008 to serve students interested in pursuing careers in architecture, engineering and construction. At the time, supporters said there was high demand from students interested in taking courses of study that had been eliminated by high schools faced with shrinking budgets. There was even talk of possibly using the Portland charter school as a model to create similar programs around the state.

But six years and three executive directors later, ACE Academy, which receives state funding for student enrollment from four “partner” school districts, has fallen short on enrollment goals, leaving the educational partners wondering whether they will need to pull the plug on their support for the charter school.

ACE Academy administrators admit the school is at a critical juncture this year. They’re pinning their hopes on a revamped program designed to attract more students, create additional revenue and re-establish the school as a vital link in the building industry in Oregon.

By the numbers

ACE Academy opened its doors in 2008 with a plan to eventually enroll 500 students, a number that was later revised to a more realistic 200 students. But the school’s enrollment actually has hovered between 135 and 150 students – 50 to 70 students shy of the target, according to Jim Schlachter, superintendent of Gresham-Barlow School District, one of ACE’s four district partners.

Through an agreement reached in 2011, the four district partners — Gresham-Barlow, Reynolds, Centennial and Parkrose — guaranteed payments to the charter school for a total of 175 students expected to attend ACE every year. For the coming school year, though, only 156 students are projected to attend, according to Rick Larson, director of business and operations at Centennial School District, who also does business services for ACE and attends regular board meetings.

The districts pay ACE Academy $3,131 per seat, which means they’ll end up paying about $60,000 for the 19 empty seats during the coming school, Larson said.

During the past school year, ACE Academy had only 136 students enrolled, which resulted in a roughly $120,000 subsidy for unfilled seats, according to Larson.

“This is not something that anybody associated with ACE sees as a sustainable plan,” Larson said. “I don’t know when the board of directors will decide they can’t do these guarantees anymore.”

The guarantees from the districts are needed to keep the school running, including operating costs and teacher salaries, Larson said. Without the guarantees, the school would not be able to continue to operate.

Raising enrollment to about 200 students would match the district guarantees.

For the 2014-15 school year, Centennial anticipates sending 30 students to ACE, seven less than it has guaranteed in funding, but the number of students it actually sends could end up lower, Larson said.

Parkrose and Gresham are roughly on target with their projected enrollment for 2014-15, while Reynolds School District is projected to be 13 shy of its guarantee, Larson said.

Gresham Barlow’s Schlachter said the school district partners have become wary about directing students toward ACE Academy. While teachers, principals and counselors consider the charter school’s program to be basically a duplicate of wood shop and technical programs in existence at the schools the students already attend, there’s a larger concern that prevents them from recommending the charter school to students.

Leadership changes affect stability

Schlachter points to a high number of leadership changes at ACE Academy as a key disconnect between the charter school and its educational partners.

Mark Clifford, now in his second year with ACE, is the school’s third executive director since 2008. That kind of turnover has fostered a sense of distrust from school administrators, faculty and counselors who invariably are the ones recommending whether students should attend ACE, Schlachter said.

Word-of mouth is critical for ACE, which relies on students from its partnering districts along with other schools and home-schooled students to leave their home schools and sometimes travel across town for afternoon classes, Schlachter said.

“As a board, we believe, and I believe, that [ACE is] a very viable program,” Schlachter said. “But if you keep bringing in a different leader, you have to establish a position of trust. My hope is that [Clifford] can build those relationships. That is the biggest challenge.”

Clifford, who spent his first year assessing programs and changing some personnel at the charter school, acknowledged that ACE has fallen short in making itself attractive to students and their academic advisors. The school also has not connected with industry leaders in the way it was originally intended to, he said.

For the coming school year, Clifford has revamped the school’s construction program to have students build one mini-house per year. Clifford has inked an agreement with the Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute to work with ACE staff to lead students through the process and he plans to bring other trades on board and turn to the industry for donations of construction materials, he said.

“This is going to be a very unique program,” he said. “Right now, we only have the carpenters inked, but we’re going to get everybody.”

Having students work on such a large-scale, real-world project would accomplish two goals, according to Clifford. Ideally, the 400-square-foot mini-houses will be sold for between $28,000 and $60,000, drumming up revenue for ACE Academy. Having a house-building program also hopefully will attract students looking for a challenging experience.

“We’ve done chicken coops, dog houses and sheds,” Clifford said. “I said, ‘That wasn’t good enough. We need to do more.'”

ACE Academy also is addressing how it implements its English, math and science programs. In recent years, most of the works in those subjects has been done online. But in year-end surveys, students called for more classroom time for learning those core subjects.

“We weren’t seeing the outcomes we were hoping for,” Clifford said. “We’re shifting to a more traditional approach with some [classroom] integration.”

ACE also is trying to boost its industry connections by starting what will be the first high-school student chapter of AGC in the U.S., Clifford said.

Thirty students have signed up initially for the student-led organization, which will open up networking opportunities and connect students with industry professionals. The student chapter will kick off with an afternoon barbecue Aug. 26 at the ACE Academy, Clifford said.

Long-term goals

Clifford and others who support ACE Academy aren’t just taking a short-term approach to fixing the charter school’s challenges.

If the mini-house project turns out to be a money maker, Clifford says the house-building program could be expanded to include presold custom homes with solar panels and up to eight different models.

A revenue stream of that capacity combined with an ability to hit target enrollment numbers wouldn’t just help the charter school step away from its reliance on the money that comes in from district partners. It also would allow ACE Academy to require less assistance from private partners within the construction industry, said Tom Goodhue, executive director of Oregon Building Congress and an ACE board member.

Out of ACE Academy’s $988,213 budget, for example, $709,000 comes from state dollars funneled through its four school district partners. The charter school also has about $150,000 in reserves and $118,000 in donations, including $53,500 given by the Associated General Contractors Education Foundation.

Goodhue would like to see the charter school eventually step away completely from its reliance on private-industry donations. Becoming financially self-sufficient, Goodhue said, is crucial in order to grow ACE Academy’s programs in a sustainable way.

“That extra revenue would put the school over the top,” he said.