CROWN KING, AZ — High up in the Bradshaw Mountains, in a town of about 100 people, the Crown King School has been serving students in the same one-room schoolhouse since 1917, and now a change has come.
The Crown King School District was approved to start serving high school students this year, after only educating kindergarten through eighth graders since it opened.
The school only has nine students in various grades. Head teacher Kristine Spann teaches all of them alongside her instructional assistant, Danielle Nelson.
"I'm responsible for the state testing, state reporting. It is very unique up here. You're not just the teacher, you're the superintendent. We're held to the same standards as any other school district in Arizona,” she told ABC15.
Do you have a concern in your community or a news tip? We want to hear from you!
Connect with us: share@abc15.com
In teaching various grade levels, Spann has a lot of prep work to do. Nelson helps reinforce the materials that Spann teaches them.
“I have the kids have a schedule that's just independent to them, so it's one-on-one or small group instruction,” Spann said.
Now that they’re approved to teach high schoolers, Spann said that’s a new opportunity for their town. She told ABC15 that sometimes students would have to move out of the town, drive an hour and a half one way to a brick-and-mortar school, or do online homeschool learning when they moved on to high school.
While Spann works on getting her secondary education endorsements to teach, the two freshman students at the school now are doing online curriculum through ASU Global Prep. Spann says she is their co-teacher and is there for any in-person support.
“It's so cool to keep the history of the schoolhouse and Crown King alive within our students, and at the same time, just provide the best education as possible,” she said.
Want more news in your community? Add ABC15 as a preferred source on Google below:
