BENTON HARBOR — The first thing a visitor to Countryside Academy notices is how big it is.

The words “charter school” don’t really prepare you for a full-size high school, and “Cougar Country” on Meadowbrook west of M-140 Road in Benton Township is only one of two campuses. The other is in Millburg in a renovated Benton Harbor school.

Countryside has been on the minds of the Dowagiac Board of Education as part of the discussion about closing Sister Lakes, Patrick Hamilton and Kincheloe elementary schools to consolidate the lower grades at Union High while expanding the 2005 middle school for high school.

Voter approval in 2012 would be required to set that vision for a “one in 100” district into motion, but the school board has wondered about the extent Countryside could impact enrollment absent Sister Lakes.

Agriculturally-oriented Countryside is definitely the seam where rural America meets the inner city, with 40 percent of students drawn from Benton Harbor to former farmland and Berrien County’s only FFA program overseen by Cassie Hartsell of Cassopolis, whose agriscience classes occupy a building with an attached greenhouse.

Fluffy yellow chicks filled a pen in one corner.

Fifth-year Principal Steve Rigoni of Paw Paw also grows grapes — he presented some and carbonated juice to visiting national FFA Vice President Tiffany Rogers of Niles, the first such farm commodity she has been given in a year’s travels which took her to 40 states and Japan.

Countryside doesn’t expect its students to become farmers, though some might.

The charter school’s scope is wider, encompassing appreciation for agriculture so they know from where their food comes, since urban residents are so disconnected from farming.

Continue up Meadowbrook a few miles and you’ll find yourself in congestion at Orchards Mall, where students can catch a shuttle.

Recycling and how to care for the environment loom large as lessons, too. A FARE theme is central to the school, with the acronym standing for Food, Agriculture, Renewable Resources and Environment.

When Hartsell hired on over the summer as one of about 50 teachers, she made the common mistake of assuming they meant FAIR theme.

Rigoni, whose father, Dino, is a  prominent farmer in Decatur, said Cornerstone, like many charter schools, started out with grades K-8 15 years ago.

“Then they built that building up to the gym,” he gestures at the facilities arrayed behind him as he chats at the edge of a playground. “They had the entire school in that one wing. The next year, as the eighth graders got older, they added ninth, then 10th, 11th and 12th. This is the 11th full year for high school and a full K-12,” Rigoni said.

“In the interim, they built the Millburg campus, which is about four miles straight north. They bought a school that had been shut down by the Benton Harbor district and totally revamped it. Over there, we have kindergarten, first and second grades,” so students must be in at least third grade to attend this location.

On the other side of the gym, behind which is the cafeteria, are third, fourth and fifth grades.

Grades six, seven and eight occupy the original building.

Grades nine through 12 are on the other side of the gym, plus there is the ag science facility with greenhouse attached.

“The school is built on academics and appreciation of agriculture,” Rigoni said, “and we have very strict policies for discipline and dress code. Everything is to make a better student. Agriculture isn’t the biggest part of our program. We follow the Michigan Merit curriculum. Our students have to have everything everybody else does.“

“One major misconception about charter schools is that ‘you can do whatever you darn well please,’ ” Rigoni said. “That was the initial concept, but it’s changed an awful lot. We have an authorizer above us, Central Michigan University. They’re the largest authorizer of charter schools in this state. The state allows for so many charter schools to be formed. Until quite recently, charter schools were limited. Then they came out with Schools of Excellence in different areas that could expand, so a few have popped up recently.”

Where Cornerstone emphasizes agriculture, another niche might be arts-based.

“Basically, they’re an alternative source of education,” the principal said. “Michigan Merit gets our kids going on to college four years of math, four years of English, three years of social studies and two years of foreign language.”

“Most people think we have less regulation than public schools,” he said, “but we have more because not only do we have to meet all the criteria that the state requires, we also have to meet all the requirements set forth” by CMU.

Central set its own goals for schools it authorizes, such as for increasing ACT scores.

Besides Countryside in the immediate area, there are Benton Harbor Charter, which goes up through eighth grade; and Dream Academy, a high school also in Benton Harbor.

“There are not a lot of charter high schools,“ Rigoni said. “You’ll find a lot more charter elementary schools. We can pull students from anywhere. We’re 100-percent Schools of Choice. We do not have a school district, so basically, anyone from the State of Michigan can attend. Eighty to 90 percent of our students come out of Benton Harbor. We do have some out of the Sister Lakes and Dowagiac areas,” as well as Coloma, Watervliet, Decatur, Eau Claire and Berrien Springs.

Rigoni recalls receiving a letter from the Michigan Department of Education his first year as principal essentially inquiring, “What are you guys doing?” because the same students posting low scores in what was regarded as a failing district turned themselves into achievers a few miles away in the country.

He credits a “very dedicated staff. Our teachers don’t have quite as many perks as the public school teachers do. Between the junior high and high school we’re at 215 (students). The other 275 to 285 is K-5.”

Almost 500 students.

“Right now one of our major goals is adding a gymnasium,” Rigoni related. “It’s very small, not regulation, so we can’t have home games for high school-level basketball.”

The Cougars, school colors bllue and silver (or white) are part of the Red Arrow Conference, “but every game we play is away,” he said. “We’re a public school, which a lot of people don’t understand. Even though we’re charter, we’re 100-percent public. Our funding is the per-pupil that everyone in the state gets. What we don’t get is millage from property tax. Where other schools’ per-pupil funding can be 40 percent of their budget and the rest comes from millages, 100 percent of our funding comes from that same per-pupil fund, so we have to run a really tight ship. There is no tuition to get in. The only thing we look at is have there been any suspensions or expulsions in the last two years. If the record is clear, the door’s open.

“We’ve been heavily recruiting around the area to have kids come out here. We’re proud of our scores. Just a couple of years ago on the MME, which students take the two days after the ACT, we had a 100-percent proficiency rate on social studies. Only one other school in the tri-county area achieved that as well. And this is kids from a ‘failing school district.’

“We have expectations. In our junior high and high schools, there was no such thing as a grade letter D. Anything below 70 percent is failing. We did remove that from the high school. In the elementary and junior high, if you pass three out of your four core classes, you can go to the next grade. It becomes more difficult in high school because you have to have the four years of math and English and all of that.   Some of our classes are so tough, especially algebra II, we threw in a grade letter D so they can pass the course as long as they perform to that level. We’ve had kids come back to college and say it’s easier than what they did here.”

Rigoni taught four years of alternative education before joining Countryside.

Juice grapes he grows are destined for Welch’s.

“I’m a principal who grows grapes,” he explained. “When this calls, I’ve got to be here.”

School board — they call the appointed officials the board of directors — when there is an opening, as happened this year, candidates interview with CMU, which has the last word on whether they are acceptable members or not.

“Parents make an effort to bring their kids out here because they want a better choice for their education,” Rigoni said. “Last year we started a shuttle bus. We don’t go around to everyone’s house, but it picks up from the mall and brings them here. The problem was, the out-and-back trips twice a day got expensive in an economically depressed area. When gas hit $4 a gallon, our attendance went way down. With the shuttle bus, our numbers went back up substantially.

“Our student population is 40 percent African-American, 40 percent Caucasian and 20 percent other, which is mostly Hispanic. The property across the street belongs to the president of the board, who is one of the founders of the school. This location was picked because when they talked initially about forming the school, this farm happened to come up for sale, so they moved very quickly to get an option on it.

“When legislation passed in the Engler administration to form charter schools, there were farmers sitting in one of the little diners around here, talking about it. There was talk about where to put it. I know Bainbridge Township was considered. There are almost 70 acres here. It goes straight back, narrow and deep. We have a trail through the woods and a little pond. People grow crops in the back. We have a little-bitty airplane that flew at one time that kids learn how to do the fabric for the wings.”

School days start at 7:45 a.m. and go until 3 p.m.

For extra-curricular activities, Countryside offers wrestling, football, basketball, cross country, track, cheerleading, FFA, Spanish Club, Academic Challenge, student government in charge of Friday’s blood drive — one of three during the academic year — and an elementary music class — but no band with little more than 100 high school students.

Friday will also be a penny carnival and they sponsored a car show which filled the parking lot in May.

There’s a community picnic, which also helps make for what the principal considers a “warm, friendly, inviting environment.”

“In the winter time, when basketball and wrestling are both going on,” Rigoni said, “it takes a huge chunk of the student body just to keep those two operating. But we are looking at building a larger gym so quite a few things could go on at the same time.”

To erect a gymnasium, there will not be a bond issue like Dowagiac might consider to add a high school onto DMS.

“When this started, a handful of individuals had to put their names on a loan to get the funding,” Rigoni said. “A lot of banks were afraid because you don’t have a millage. What happens if you fold up and can’t make it? Where do they get their money? The founders had a big interest in this being successful, an incredible leap of faith. My first year we had a student who graduated who was the first in the family. There were a lot of tears because it was such a big deal. This year we graduated 17. Our largest class a couple of years ago we had 30.”