Rancho Solano plans West Valley high school

Krysti Kauffmann  is thrilled with her daughter's school, Rancho Solano Private School's Gilbert campus.

So when the Kauffmanns learned Rancho Solano was opening a high school, they decided Kaitlyn, who is in seventh grade, will eventually enroll, especially since the school will provide private coach service to bring Kaitlyn and her East Valley peers to the campus at 35th Avenue and Union Hills Drive, a little more than 50 miles away from the Kauffmanns' Chandler home.

Rancho Solano currently has campuses in Scottsdale, Gilbert, Phoenix and the West Valley. Rancho Solano Preparatory School will open at one of the former elementary school sites in August with 75 to 100 students, said Jim Carruthers, Phoenix representative for Meritas, the international company that owns the school. Plans are to open with a ninth-grade class and possibly a 10th-grade class, then expand by one grade each year. The campus will eventually serve 600 students.

Carruthers said the high school program will be unique for the Valley. Students will get a full curriculum of standard subjects but will also choose a "major" area like entrepreneurship, performing arts or math, science and technology.

But even Carruthers was shocked that families in the East Valley would be interested in sending their kids so far away to school.

"They all said, 'We want to come,' " he said. "They said there's really not a school of this caliber down in that area."

So to meet the demand, the school decided to offer coach service from its Scottsdale, Gilbert and Phoenix campuses, he said.

And it may eventually offer a boarding program, he said.

Three families from the Gilbert school have expressed interest so far, and Rancho Solano is marketing heavily across the Valley, Carruthers said.

Kauffmann said she wasn't thrilled with the distance, but was glad the bus would be a coach service with wireless Internet access.

"So it's not going to be a waste of time sitting on the bus," Kauffmann said. "She could be sitting at home at the kitchen table doing her homework or she could be sitting on the bus doing her homework."