School History | MITCH Charter School

M.I.T.C.H. was born from a passion shared by two best friends. Debi Lorence and Mitch Andrews had been best friends since Jr. High and both graduated from Tigard High School in 1982. Mitch went into the business world after college and Debi went on to become a teacher. Neither Debi nor Mitch felt that their high school education prepared them adequately for college. They both married and had two children. They decided after working in their careers for 10 years, that they should try to provide a different kind of educational opportunity for all children. In 1996, the only alternative to a public school was private.

Mitch was diagnosed with non Hodkins Lymphomia cancer January 1997. Debi and Mitch devoted hundreds of hours looking into the best schools world wide. Many types of schools were investigated (Farm Schools, College Preps), and many kinds of curriculum were researched. The options for schools seemed endless at first. The logical approach was to search for the top rated schools academically nation wide and analyze what made them successful.

They determined that schools with an agricultural emphasis were extremely successful. Debi and Mitch combined the agricultural focus with the most successful academic curriculum available. The curriculum they chose was Riggs Language Arts, Saxon Math and Core Knowledge. They partnered a strong hands on approach with their agricultural emphasis and successful curriculum to complete the M.I.T.C.H. educational model. M.I.T.C.H. (Multi-sensory Instruction Teaching Children Hands-on) continues to use this model today.

Mitch never saw the school's first year. She died in September of 1998. The school was named in memory of her. Debi was determined to complete the work they had started. In May of 1999, the charter school bill was passed in Oregon. It was signed into law by Governer Kitzhaber. Debi took the ideas and pursued their vision using the newly approved charter school option.. The M.I.T.C.H school was one of the first charter schools in Oregon to start the process of chartering with a school district. Debi chose Tigard-Tualatin since that is where her and Mitch grew up and graduated. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Being on the forefront of a new educational frontier is not easy and M.I.T.C.H was not opened until the 2002/2003 school year. M.I.T.C.H started that first year as a K-3 school; today it currently operates as a K-5 school. M.I.T.C.H has been extremely successful with it's approach to education and currently has some of the highest academic test scores in the State of Oregon.