This story was originally published by Chalkbeat.
DENVER | A second school has closed permanently because of a law change aimed at a group some Colorado lawmakers believed was exploiting legal loopholes to authorize public schools and programs statewide.
Pueblo Classical Academy, which enrolled 260 K-12 students, won’t reopen in August, school leaders announced on social media in mid-July, after declining for weeks to comment on the school’s fate. Another school, Riverstone Academy, which backers called “Colorado’s first public Christian school,” closed in May.
Both schools were authorized by a Monument-based group called Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES. Such co-ops are allowed to authorize schools, but most don’t.
It’s not often a state law change prompts such swift school closures, but lawmakers felt a sense of urgency in reining in ERBOCES because of controversy surrounding Riverstone and the many publicly funded homeschool enrichment programs the co-op authorized in recent years.
State lawmakers passed strict limits on the authorizing power of such co-ops in the last days of the legislative session. The decision meant Pueblo Classical School, Riverstone, and one other school, Ascend College Prep, had to find new authorizers to stay open.
Only Ascend, a small school for students in grades 10 to 12, was successful, becoming a charter school authorized by the Charter School Institute, a statewide charter authorizer.
Pueblo Classical sought to become a charter school authorized by Pueblo School District 60, but the district’s school board voted it down. The school has a history of switching authorizers, flip-flopping between being a BOCES-authorized school and a charter school.
It opened in 2021 with ERBOCES as its authorizer. In 2022, it became a charter school authorized by District 70. But in 2024, the district revoked its charter because of financial breaches and its failure to report an employee’s arrest, among other concerns. At that point, the school returned to ERBOCES.
Pueblo Classical was part of a three-school network in Pueblo County. The other two schools are charters authorized by the Pueblo 60 district and will remain open. Fulton Heights Charter Academy has about 200 K-8 students, Jones Charter Academy has about 370 K-8 students.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.