AURORA | The charter school landscape in Aurora Public Schools simultaneously ebbed and flowed Tuesday, June 7, after the district’s Board of Education voted to shutter five online learning centers and heard proposals from four other charters vying to join APS.
The local school board Tuesday confirmed a recommendation submitted last month by Superintendent Rico Munn and APS’ Chief Accountability and Research Officer Lisa Escárcega asking the board not to renew the district’s contract with HOPE Online Learning Academy Co-Op, a Douglas County-based charter school network that currently operates five online learning centers in the district.
Munn and Escárcega cited a lack of accountability, poor marks granted by the State Review Panel, subpar test scores and lingering turnaround status at the school as reasons for the proposal.
HOPE currently operates 11 online learning centers throughout the state and serves about 375 students in APS, according to district documents.
The board’s decision to sever the district’s relationship with HOPE came despite comments from several parents, students and administrators imploring APS to continue to work with the online charter school provider.
“We are dismayed that you are not interested in what we have to say about what is in the students’ best interest,” Michael Bautista, chair of the HOPE Board of Directors, said on behalf of his fellow board members. “We are surprised that you consider these students to be yours. This is the 21st century, and Colorado is a state that allows for school choice.”
After the APS board’s decision, HOPE filed a formal appeal with the State Board of Education regarding the issue, according to Amanda Kalina, spokeswoman for the school.
“We are confident the State Board of Education will see that HOPE is in the best interests of pupils, parents and community,” Kalina wrote in an email.
Following the vote on HOPE, the school board heard four separate presentations from charter school providers contending to join APS.
The board did not make any formal votes on the charter presentations Tuesday. Instead, board members heard the district’s recommendations for how to proceed with each charter provider — a process that included several asterisks.
Among the board’s recommendations: Approve Academy of Advanced Learning, a proposed K-8 charter school, to open in 2017; Approve Vega Collegiate Academy, a grades 5-8 charter school slated for 2017; deny Dean Institute of Learning Charter School, a proposed K-5 charter; and re-evaluate the application from Rocky Mountain Prep, the Denver-based charter school provider poised to take over operations at the Fletcher Community School with pre-kindergarten services later this summer.
Despite the approvals, only the Academy of Advanced Learning moved to the school board’s June 21 consent agenda without much debate. Discussions on the three other schools —Vega Collegiate, Dean Institute and Rocky Mountain Prep — precipitated at times lengthy squabbling.
Although the district recommended that the board approve Vega Collegiate Academy, the charter school almost simultaneously requested to be released to the purview of the state-controlled Charter School Institute. School leaders cited an ability to receive a greater cut of Title I funding as their reason for opting for CSI.
Escárcega said that she will meet with representatives from CSI and re-evaluate the district’s recommendation given Vega’s recent request.
Following the Vega presentation, Esárcega outlined a litany of concerns with the application submitted by the proposed leaders of the Dean Institute — qualms that resulted in her recommendation that the board deny the school’s application.
A dearth of details regarding the school’s policies and procedures, leadership structure and financial stability underscored Escárcega’s concerns. She also pointed to a potential conflict of interest tied to the fact that two of the school’s leaders would double as landlords and board members. They are also married.
“We’re not comfortable creating this potential conflict of interest where there is just too high a risk of undue influence,” said Brandon Eyre, a member of APS’ legal counsel.
Board members bickered over details presented by Rocky Mountain Prep, the final charter school considered Tuesday. The school board elected to restart the discussion on Rocky Mountain Prep, a top-performing charter network with two campuses in Denver, at its next meeting June 21 as a standalone action item.
Earlier this spring, Rocky Mountain Prep was tapped to take over operations at Fletcher, a beleaguered pilot school in northwest Aurora that has long struggled with high attrition rates, teacher turnover and paltry test scores.
The proposed transition has continued to fluster Fletcher staffers, many of whom attended the recent board meeting wearing stickers with the phrase, “#KeepFletcherPublic.”
“We as a staff have been calling out for help from the district for a few years now,” said Cindy Gray, who has been a first-grade teacher at Fletcher for the past 16 years. “However, it seems to us that our cries have fallen on deaf ears.”
Barring board approval, Rocky Mountain Prep is tentatively slated to begin moving into Fletcher to begin Pre-K operations in August.