AURORA | Colorado Skies Academy has another shot at success after the Cherry Creek School District expressed “significant concerns” about the charter school’s viability.
The district’s school board voted earlier this semester to grant a one-year extension of the school’s current contract contingent on it complying with a list of requirements from the district that include seeking to recruit more female students, implementing the district’s standardized safety protocols and meeting enrollment projections.
“If CSA substantially complies with the identified conditions, CSA will be given the opportunity to request an additional one year extension of its Charter School Contract,” board documents said. “If CSA fails to comply with the identified conditions, CSA will be subject to non-renewal by CCSD.”
The aerospace-focused middle school on the campus of the Centennial Airport has had a turbulent relationship with the district. The district initially voted not to grant CSA a charter when it initially reached out to seek authorization, but was overruled by the Colorado state board of education.
The district ultimately granted the academy a four-year charter running through the summer of 2023 and said its goal was for CSA to be “a successful school that ultimately reflects the high standards of the Cherry Creek School District.”
The school opened in the fall of 2019 for sixth through eighth grade students, with students attending school in trailers and then online once the pandemic started. In the fall of 2020 it celebrated the grand opening of its $10 million permanent campus, which is adjacent to the Wings Over the Rockies Exploration of Flight exhibit on airport grounds.
At the grand opening, then-director Suzanne Acheson painted a rosy picture of the school’s future as students expressed excitement about returning to in-person learning. However, board documents regarding the charter renewal detail a long list of concerns about the school’s performance over the past few years.
The district said that Colorado Skies Academy had struggled to meet enrollment projections, had significantly fewer female than male students, had not implemented CCSD’s Standard Response Protocol that all district schools use for security, and that it had struggled with budget deficits, administrative turnover and staffing shortages.
Current director Katie Dutton, who came on board recently, told the Sentinel that many of the school’s challenges were due to the fact that it opened so soon before the pandemic began.
The fall of 2019 was “a really inauspicious time” for a new school to be opening and it initially struggled to find its footing, she said.
Dutton said she has more experience in the charter school world than some of the past leaders, which many have accounted for some of its challenges. She previously worked with current Douglas County School District Superintendent Erin Kane when Kane was director of the American Academy charter school, and credited her with giving her a strong background in the financial side of how to run a school.
She said the school is aware of its challenges and is committed to meeting the requirements that Cherry Creek has set in place, which included submitting a plan for how it will recruit more female students, meeting its enrollment projections for the next three years, demonstrating academic growth based on state testing data and maintaining continuity in leadership.
The renewal contract also states that the school’s core revenue must cover the majority of its expenditures for the incoming school year and it cannot rely on emergency fundraising or grants for any more than 3% of its overall budget.
It is also required to put together a plan to meet certain bond covenants, which the school said it plans to do in part by changing how it pays for special education services. Said that a significant number of the school’s student body have Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, in part due to how many students enrolled are neurodivergent.
The school had about 220 students during its first two years of enrollment. This school year only 130 are enrolled. The school building has a maximum capacity of 375, and Dutton said 300 would be an ideal student population.
About 45% of the school’s current students are within CCSD’s boundaries, another 35% are in the Douglas County School District and the rest are from throughout the metro area. At 84%, the student body population is overwhelmingly male.
Dutton said the district wants the school to focus more on drawing students from Cherry Creek. She said the school will attempt to recruit more from the district but that ultimately it wants kids from everywhere who are excited about aerospace.
The school will also be attempting to balance its gender ratio, which Dutton said would be a positive because girls are “a little bit of a civilizing force.” However, she said that female students who are comfortable being in a male-dominated environment will be better-prepared for enticing the aerospace industry.
Documents provided to Cherry Creek from CSA said that the school plans to advertise online and to recruit at a number of local STEM and aerospace-focused events, including with several organizations geared towards girls.
Dutton said she believes that part of the school’s enrollment problems are due to a lack of name recognition and a misconception on behalf of the founders of just how much recruiting it would need to do. Unlike with traditional neighborhood schools, “there’s no feeder school that just magically dumps them in.”
She also thinks that the school has not been exempt from the larger trend of declining enrollment across the metro area, which has caused many districts to make hard choices to close some of their schools.
“We’re all struggling with enrollment because families are having a harder and harder time being able to afford living here,” Dutton said.
Colorado Skies Academy serves students who often have struggled in a more traditional school environment, Dutton said. While middle school is “nobody’s favorite time of life,” she said that many of the students are enjoying school for their first time while at CSA.
The school is hoping to significantly increase its enrollment, and Dutton said that families who choose to enroll their kids for the fall school year “will have a significantly improved experience.”
“I’m optimistic,” Dutton said. “It’s a lot of work but I think it will be an incredible school as we continue to grow.”