Bayfield School District’s application for Exclusive Chartering Authority has been approved by the Colorado State Board of Education, making the school district the sole authorizer for future charter school placement in the district and opening up the possibility for Ascent Classical Academy to finally establish a school in La Plata County.
“This means a charter school wishing to set up operations within our district boundaries must be authorized by BSD,” said Bayfield School District Board of Education President Mike Foutz in an email to The Durango Herald. “This authority is possible in part because we are a school district of less than 3,000 students.”
Bayfield School District Superintendent Leon Hanhardt said the district only recently learned it did not have chartering authority.
“When Bayfield School District was made aware that we did not have ECA (Exclusive Chartering Authority) in November, we began communication with our legal counsel to gain ECA in November,” he wrote in an email to the Herald. “Our team spent time researching and preparing a resolution for our School Board during November and December.”
Hanhardt said the district submitted its application to the Colorado State Board of Education on Jan. 12. The Colorado State School Board approved the application at its next regular meeting on Feb. 8, he said.
According to the Colorado Charter School Institute website, charter schools in Colorado can be authorized by school districts or CSI. With an Exclusive Chartering Authority status, Bayfield School District now has the sole responsibility of reviewing new school proposals and negotiating clear goals and expectations in contracts between the district and potential charters. The school district must also continually monitor the charter’s performance and compliance with all district requirements and take appropriate action with the school if it fails to meet expectations.
A school district can also transfer control to CSI, which would then either approve or reject the charter’s application. If approved, CSI would have complete authority over the school’s operations, rather than the district. Such a transfer of power was proposed during a school board meeting in Ignacio last year, when some board members wanted to turn Ascent Classical Academy’s application to put a charter school in the Ignacio School District over to CSI, thereby giving it full control over Ascent and its funding and operations. However, a majority of the school board voted down the measure.
Foutz said Ascent Classical Academy contacted his district in January with an interest in setting up a charter school in the area.
“We had not received notification that Ascent was interested in having a location in Bayfield until January 6th, 2023, when we received a letter stating that: ‘the Ascent Classical Academy Charter School intends to submit a replication application to the Colorado Charter School Institute (CSI) for a K-12 charter school in the geographic boundaries of the Bayfield School District,’” he said.
If Ascent applies for a charter, it would be the fifth time it has applied with a school district in La Plata County to put in a charter school. The initial district of choice was Durango 9-R, which twice denied the charter’s application in 2022.
District staff members found Ascent met only eight of 35 rubric standards, which are based on school culture, leadership, educational programming, teaching and governance.
Ascent then went to the Ignacio School District, hoping to put a school into an empty building within the district near Durango-La Plata County Airport. Similar to the 9-R district, the Ignacio Board of Education had too many issues with Ascent’s application, including the charter school pulling funds from the district’s already limited budget and a lack of diversity within the charter’s Greco-roman-based curriculum. It applied twice to the Ignacio School District.
“There’s been no recognition of our culture here. Their curriculum is Western-centric. Where does our diverse population come in? Where are they observing our cultural diversity and history?” said David Quiroz, an Ignacio school district educator at a board meeting in November.
Seemingly determined to put a school in La Plata County, the third time might be the charm for Ascent, which could bring some healthy competition to the area, a sentiment expressed by Ignacio School Board Vice President Yvonne Chapman last November.
Representatives of Ascent Classical Academy could not be reached for comment.
molsen@durangoherald.com
