WIMBERLEY  — On the heels of financial challenges, the Katherine Anne Porter School, or KAPS, is looking to invite even more students in its doors.

Founded in 1998 by Dr. Yana Bland and others, KAPS was started on the belief held by Texas writer, Katherine Anne Porter, that “knowledge of great art and great thought is a good in itself, not to be missed for anything,” according to its website. The tuition-free public charter school values the voice of every member of its community and expects all to embrace and employ these values: academic achievement, freedom, participation/collaboration, respect, community involvement/service and environmental stewardship.

KAPS is designed to be different from traditional schools. The smaller environment has students in grades eight through 12, and there are only 100 students currently on campus, leading to smaller class sizes, said board president Erin Stonehawk-Hearn.

“We have a lot of students who experience maybe bullying from big schools or get overwhelmed by large cafeterias. The schools around Wimberley are big and that just doesn’t suit everyone’s learning styles,” she said. “We focus on creativity. We focus on student-teacher relationships. We focus on relationships between students and making sure that we have that tight-knit community, shared respect environment where we really celebrate diversity, whether that’s diversity of thought or any other type of diversity. We encourage diversity. We celebrate unique students.”

In 2022, the KAPS community — which became a family to many — heard word that the academic environment could possibly change, thus leading them to speak up. On Jan. 31, 2022, the board considered a merger for KAPS with ResponsiveEd, a charter school operator, for a Premier High School; this type of school is a college-preparatory program that prioritizes credit recovery, credit acceleration and career and technical education (CTE). Through Premier, students would complete this program self-paced, while also having a teacher present in the classroom.

After more than 50 students, parents and alumni shared their concerns about the need to preserve the school, the board postponed its decision for 90 days and, ultimately, the merger was no longer on the table.

Board members and those of the community during that time worked to raise funds to keep the school afloat. Former board president Cynthia Milonzi said, back in January 2022, that KAPS needed approximately $277,000 (rounded to $300,000) to cover the budget shortfall for that year alone. The school had a mortgage balance of approximately $76,000 (rounded to $100,000) and they added an additional $100,000 as a buffer that could take care of some building maintenance.

Now, KAPS is starting off the school year with “a new vibe,” according to Stonehawk-Hearn.

“We have approximately around 100 students enrolled right now and we’re actively seeking to increase our enrollment. We know that there’s a lot of students out there who need a smaller community and who would benefit from sort of a creative, social, emotionally-based school environment,” Stonehawk-Hearn said.

The board president continued to state that KAPS is still in budget crunches, as that simply does not go away.

Public schools in Texas receive state funding based on the average daily attendance (ADA) of students, which is the same for independent school districts and for open-enrollment charter schools, according to the Texas Education Agency.

“We don’t have the ability to draw on local taxes. So, a traditional public school has four funding streams. Two of those are through the state and two of those are through local funding,”  Stonehawk-Hearn said. “You pay your property taxes, that goes to your local ISD public schools; charters only get funded through state finances.”

KAPS currently does not have a set funding goal that it is raising to keep the building open as it did in 2022, Stonehawk-Hearn said, but that could potentially change when the board approves the new budget by the end of August. She said that they are also looking at potentially going into a strategic planning phase to develop a capital fundraising campaign.

“We’re looking at that and looking into that to see where there might be gaps. The best way to fund schools is to have more students in our doors,” the board president explained. “Right now, our focus is sort of on enrollment and making sure that students who would benefit from the KAPS environment know that we’re here and know that we exist.”

The merger that was proposed in 2022 is completely gone with a new superintendent, administrative team and a board who are committed to keeping KAPS the same, Stonehawk-Hearn said.

Those who are wishing to learn more information about KAPS, or donate to help the school continue to provide a unique academic environment, can visit www.kapschool.org.