The Durango School District 9-R board voted to deny a charter school’s request to have its application reviewed at the state level instead of by the board itself.
Ascent Classical Academies, the charter school business seeking to open a school in the Durango area, wanted to bypass the school district’s local chartering authority to pursue a more expeditious approval process through the state. A state statutory period allows charter schools to apply between Aug. 1 and Oct. 1.
The school board regained its local chartering authority – the ability to approve of and administrate charter schools within district boundaries – under the last superintendent, Dan Snowberger, who retired in 2020.
The school board is keen on keeping that authority and flexing it, members made clear at Tuesday’s meeting, much to the disappointment of Ascent Classical Academies CEO Derec Schuler.
Schuler spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, which was held virtually on Zoom.
He said he wants to apply for a charter early because of supply chain and construction delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Assuming Ascent’s application is approved in August, securing a charter contract wouldn’t happen until at least February, leaving just six months to build a school and hire staff members.
Because the board isn’t considering charter applications until August, Schuler wants to apply through Colorado Charter School Institute, the state chartering authority. But that would first require the school district’s permission.
“There’s been a lot of talk about fairness, but we’re not asking for a favor here,” he said at the board meeting. “Our request is for everyone’s benefit: Ascent, the community and the district.”
Schuler said the school district is ill-equipped to handle charter school requests because experienced personnel have left the district. Schuler added that he has a good relationship with Colorado CSI.
“I think families are frustrated because the district’s focus is on its own claim to capacity to charter us despite the recent departures of the district’s few personnel with chartering experience, and it continues to close its eyes to the best option available,” he said.
School board member Andrea Parmenter, who served as the chairwoman of the District Action Accountability Committee, disagreed with Schuler’s remarks that the district doesn’t have the experience or wherewithal to consider the charter’s application..
“Part of getting the chartering authority that this school board wants to retain … means that you have to do the work when the work needs to be done,” Parmenter said during the meeting Tuesday.
She said state statute designates Aug. 1 as the opening for charter applications. She questioned why state law designates Aug. 1 through Oct. 1 as the application window if that doesn’t give a charter school enough time to get a school started before the next school year.
“In general, I do want to continue to have local control, retain the chartering authority and to follow the statute,” she said.
Other school board members felt similarly.
School board President Kristin Smith said she and other board members are responsible for ensuring the board’s decisions reflect the community’s needs and values.
She said Colorado law requires the board to host community forums during the application process as part of its chartering authority, and she wants to host those forums to hear local feedback and review Ascent Classical Academy.
“I do think that our board has put together a pretty extensive work plan for this year,” Smith said. She added she is happy to include Ascent in the school board work plan this summer ahead of the next school year.
Board member Erika Brown said she looks forward to reviewing Ascent’s application, but that it isn’t something the board needs to rush or pass to a third party such as Colorado CSI.
“I think the oversight of the public schools in our community is one of our biggest roles as a board,” she said. “It’s something that we do and we should take really seriously.
“I realize it will be a lot of work to review that application. But I think it’s important that we do so and we do it thoroughly, and we do it in a way that really includes community input,” she said.
Board member Katie Stewart said the school board is acting in equity by keeping to the charter application period beginning in August as defined by state statute.
“We haven’t been given the chance to do the job that we signed up for, and we’d all like to do that,” she said.
Schuler said one school board member told him the school district has accepted early applications in the past. He said the district’s policy allows for charter school applications on or before Aug. 1 the year before the charter school’s proposed opening.
Board member Rick Petersen said the school policy was written to be parallel with state statute, but it says that both parties – the board and the applying charter – must be in agreement to allow the application ahead of schedule. Petersen said he believed the board was in compliance with state statute as well as its own policies.
cburney@durangoherald.com
