Supporters of a controversial charter school are expressing outrage over what they claim is anti-charter school literature being passed out in a public school.

The incident proves that Alpine School District is either dangerously lax in monitoring who enters Westfield Elementary School and what they do while in the school, or is allowing political materials to be distributed in school, said Don Baker, a supporter of the Mountainville Academy. The charter school's site plan was rejected Tuesday night by the Alpine Planning Commission, possibly putting the school's future in jeopardy.

Jerri Mortensen, spokeswoman for Alpine School District, said if the materials were being handed out inside the school, it was without permission.

On March 24, Susan Cluff of Alpine was volunteering in her daughter's third-grade classroom at Westfield Elementary School when a woman walked into the classroom with fliers and asked her to distribute them to the students to take home.

"I looked at them and put them in the cubby holes of the nine students that were still there, then I thought maybe I shouldn't have," Cluff said.

The flier asked families to attend an anti-charter school meeting at Alpine Elementary School that night, she said.

She didn't attend the meeting, but her husband, Mark, who is a member of the state Board of Education, did. "I wondered who was doing this."

"We had a report of a patron passing out fliers at the front door," Mortensen said. "The minute we heard that, we asked them to leave. They left and passed them out on the sidewalk, which is not on school property.

"I don't know if they came inside the building. When we heard this was happening, we located the parents outside the doors. If they were inside, they were there without our knowledge or permission. They didn't check in."

On Tuesday, after a heated public hearing, Alpine planning commissioners voted unanimously to deny the charter school's proposed site plan. City Council members are expected to vote on final approval or denial of the site plan next week.

School founder Rebecca Whitchurch said organizers were under contract to purchase the property for the school. If City Council members deny the site plan, the future of the school may be in jeopardy.

In an e-mail statement to supporters on Wednesday, Whitchurch and other Mountainville founders said "our plan is to vigorously defend" the proposed site plan, and "we are confident that the law is clear" regarding the school's legal standing.

Baker said because his three children are among the 675 K-8 students enrolled in the yet-to-be built school, they have lost their place at Odyssey Charter School in American Fork. Mountainville Academy was scheduled to open in August.

"Our kids are now enrolled, Odyssey has completed their enrollment, and our kids are no longer at that school," he said. "We are not prepared to homeschool, and sending them back to Highland Elementary is not an acceptable option."

Mortensen said the school district has no position about Mountainville, but Baker said he believes the school district is doing what it can to oppose the school.

"We really resent the fact that Alpine School District is forcing them back into their clutches, so to speak," he said of his children. "We feel it is not right. That is my biggest concern about Alpine School District -- they truly aren't being neutral."

In an e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily Herald, to Corey Bingham, an Alpine resident who supports the charter school, Westfield principal Bruce Wathen seemed to take a position opposing Mountainville. Wathen confirmed Wednesday he wrote the e-mail.

"At this point in time, all I see charter schools doing for Westfield is requiring us to cut our staff further," he wrote. "With the completion of another Alpine District school in our boundaries, we are having to eliminate eleven positions. For every additional 25 students we lose to charters, we'll be required to reduce staff by one. These are excellent teachers that I hate to send down the road."

The flier distributed at Westfield on March 24 "was not an anti-charter school piece of propaganda," he wrote. "It was simply to announce a meeting that was being held to discuss the proposed charter school ... if it were done again, the note would not go home."

Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page C4.