In 2008, an idea sprouted at the kitchen table of John Bullock, executive director of Redmond Proficiency Academy. A group of thoughts and goals for education came together, and RPA became a thing. A year later, the charter academy opened with about 150 ninth- to 12th-grade students. Fast forward to the beginning of this school year and there are now 850 students at RPA, from grades six to 12. Include the waitlist of nearly 200, and you have about 1,000 Central Oregon families interested in enrolling a student.

While the school has yet to reach its 10-year anniversary, it has anchored itself as a well-established alternative to traditional public education in Central Oregon.

“When we first started out we wondered if 50 people would show up for the first day of school,” Bullock said.

The essential idea that the academy was built on was to make a comfortable atmosphere where students are accepted and supported in who they are, from their individual rate of academic advancement to personal interests. This creates a tailored learning experience for each student based off their needs.

“I want to create a place where young people are respected and honored for who they are,” Bullock said. “And recognize that young people are practicing to be adults, which means they get to make mistakes, they get to screw up, they get to not understand, they get to ask questions, they are not expected to be perfect … they are expected to be who they are, and they are honored for their strengths and their weaknesses. And I think that is what we created at RPA.”

For Bullock, creating this type of atmosphere has been a passion. He came from a family of seven, public education, free lunches, and not liking school. He doesn’t criticize his childhood, that’s just how it was. But he gained a passion for school as a senior, after one of his high school teachers began nagging him almost daily about going to college. He was skeptical from lack of funding and family educational history, but eventually made it to Oregon State University (and his four siblings also made it to college). After nearly finishing a degree in business, he realized he didn’t wanted to do that. He wanted to teach English, so he changed his major. He went on to further education. His experience of dreading school transformed into passionately seeking a doctorates made Bullock want to create a place where students felt like they belonged and could seek their own passions. That place became RPA, and with it a learning environment that has seen rapid growth.

“I think choice is critical in education and our existence allows that to be a part of public system,” Bullock said. “And that choice allows all three schools (in Redmond) to be more effective in what they are doing because the students are choosing to be there … When you see someone who chooses to go to RPA and see the commitment of the students who go here, it creates an atmosphere of commitment.”

The growth of the school shows Central Oregon is taking full advantage of the choice. Since 2009, when the school opened, it hasn’t stopped growing and even garnered national attention with a feature article in The Atlantic in June 2015.

“Has it always been smooth, no, life doesn’t work like that, but over the past 10 years the experience has been amazing,” Bullock said.

Even though demand is still high, during an early September discussion Bullock expressed that RPA has nearly reached its peak size. Or rather, RPA doesn’t want to grow so big that it gets to a point where ability to individually tailor learning for each student is lost. Bullock said the current size provides ample enrollment for the area while allowing the school’s faculty to remain nimble as educators. Bullock said he never wants a student to go unnoticed and unknown in the halls of RPA.

“The public school system is filled with amazing people trying to do amazing work,” Bullock said. “But the structure of the American high school is such that it doesn’t meet the needs of every kid. And that is by no means a criticism, that’s just the reality of it. The American public high school system does an awesome job for a percentage of kids, but there is another percentage of kids that it doesn’t do an awesome job for.”

The student body is made up of 285 middle school students and 550 high schools students totaling about 850, with 525 being Redmond School District students (per contract with the district) and about 325 students from outside Redmond including Bend, Sisters, Madras and Prineville.

“We don’t want to become so big that were are this monolithic structure that students get lost in. … so I don’t know if RPA will get any bigger,” Bullock said. “We don’t want to be huge, we want to be nimble … It’s nice to be in demand, and I wish I could serve all of the students that wish to come here, but we don’t have the capacity by contract or by facilities.”

For now the goal is to hone the educational model of RPA, or “make sure we get it right,” according to Bullock. The academy opened a new middle school building at the beginning of the school year, which was built for under $200 a square foot, as well as gaining another building downtown, on the corner of SW Seventh Street and Evergreen Avenue. The McClay building is to become a performing arts space, with 10,000 square feet including a small theater space (able to seat a couple hundred people), choir, band, theater rooms, and a couple classrooms. They hope to finish renovations in time for the year’s first full production, “Midsummer’s Night Dream,” at the end of the month.

The academy is also introducing two other things this year. In effort to increase communication between students and teachers and parents and teachers, RPA adapted a new student information system. The system allows students and parents to log in and see schedules, grades, assignments, attendance, and is more interactive allowing communication with teachers. The school is also offering the AP Capstone Program, one of two schools in Oregon to offer the curriculum. About 12 students look to graduate next summer, and will be the first students in the country to receive an AP Capstone Diploma.

Bullock said the school is currently looking to secure long term its location downtown, with announcement of progress on that goal to come mid-October. The academy is even looking to add a second story to one of its buildings downtown, according to the August 2016 Monthly Activity Report for Planning and Building Division at the City of Redmond. For the foreseeable future, RPA will focus on making the academy the best it can be, with no major expansions planned.

“We want to put our kids and their efforts on display for people to be a part of in downtown Redmond,” Bullock said. “We like being downtown, we feel like it is a key part of what we do. We love it down here and we feel like we are adding to the environment and culture of downtown and we intend to be in downtown for a long time, hopefully.”

The impact the school has had on the Redmond community has been dynamic. Having the school situated in the core of downtown has given the small town core a bit of a hustle and bustle throughout the day as students make their way to various classrooms at more than four different locations. Not only does the increased traffic provide a vibrancy to downtown, it also opens up a conversation between the community and students of RPA, who inevitably interact due to proximity.

“Congestion in a downtown core is a good challenge to be facing,” said Chuck Arnold, Economic Development/Urban Renewal Program coordinator with the city, in an email Sept. 30. “As Redmond grows along with a successful downtown, the city will work with the community to ensure that congestion is not an impediment to business.”

This unique environment plays a vital role in the educational model of RPA, according to Bullock. Not only are students learning fundamental curriculum requirements, but they are also learning how to engage and be a part of the community.

Further into the future, Bullock has hopes of possibly opening schools like RPA across the country. But he said that can only be achieved after RPA has security in its location and its educational model is finely tuned.

“I love working here, this has been the best experience I have had in my educational career,” Bullock said. “What drives me everyday is that there are 850 kids that are counting on us to do it right, and that’s an incredible honor.”

— Reporter, 541-548-2185, cbrown@redmondspokesman.com