Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy: Eleanor Mroczko sets her own rules

With one chapter of her life closing by graduating from Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy, Eleanor Mroczko is ready for her next steps at the University of Idaho.

Even while attending a school as vigorous as CdA Charter, Mroczko took mostly AP classes to get as far ahead as possible.

“I don’t know why, but I decided to take a lot of AP classes, and that was a really big challenge to do that, but I got through it, and I really learned a lot from it,” she said.

Although the classes can be more intense, Mroczko has been attending Charter since sixth grade. The biggest challenge for her was the year COVID-19 hit and everything was in lockdown.

“It was really tough through the COVID years,” Lindsay Mroczko, Eleanor Mroczko’s mother, said. “It’s been a tough journey for these kids.

Sandy Midgley, a social studies and history teacher at Charter, is grateful to have had Mroczko as a student. Midgely describes her as “elegant, classy and fun” in her classroom and around the school.

“She takes tremendous care,” Midgley said. “She is meticulous about the work she turns in. It is always on time, if not early, but the difference is you will never know it. She never shows that she is obsessing about a grade or that she is trying to get yet one more point to increase her GPA. She is just genuinely hard working all the time.”

Mroczko’s family is also proud of how far she has come and what she has accomplished. Her mother has bittersweet feelings about watching her daughter go off to college.

“She is my second, and she is like my heart center child, so it is exciting to see her leave the nest,” Lindsay Mroczko said.

Despite the schoolwork being more challenging, Mroczko has found that challenge has motivated her to get to this point. The environment at Charter is close-knit so students can create strong bonds.

“Charter is kind of a small school so you get close with everyone there and you can make a lot of memories at the events like dances,” Mroczko said.

On top of Mroczko’s school work, she has also dedicated her past five years to dance, focusing on ballet, jazz and hip-hop.

“It took a lot of my time throughout high school,” Mroczko said. “Usually, like three times a week or more.”

In August, Mroczko will enroll at UI, where she plans on majoring in global disease ecology. She hopes to head down the pre-veterinary path.

For as long as she can remember, animals have always been a huge part of her life. Her family fosters older horses so they live out the rest of their lives naturally. Mroczko plans to do this for her career.

“We moved to Idaho and got a lot of animals and I have always kind of loved animals and wanted to take care of them,” she said.

Mroczko used to partake in rodeos and has been horseback riding for about nine years. Her family has two dogs, seven cats, 12 goats and two horses. Morczko hopes with this career she can keep animals as a focus in her life.

“She is our hardest worker, whenever she sets her mind to something, she will set everything aside and she gets it done,” Lindsay Mroczko said. “She won’t go out if she has homework – that comes first – and it’s not us putting the rules on her. She puts them on herself.”