Greeley charter school population near top in Colorado, Nation
The parents of 300 students crowd into the gymnasium at University Schools on Wednesday in Greeley. University Schools expanded by 500 students this year. The expansion lifts Greeley's numbers to 1 in 5 students in charter schools. Charter school growth is on the rise nationwide. Greeley is tied for first in Colorado with Brighton 27J for number of students per capita.
A recent report has Greeley-Evans School District 6 fourth in Colorado and 16th in the nation for charter school enrollment.
However, when Colorado Department of Education numbers are used, Greeley is tied for the top spot in Colorado.The numbers in the report by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools are skewed, school district officials in Colorado said.
“We are contacting the company to let them know those numbers are not right,” said Stephen Saunders, director of communications for Adams County School District 50 in Westminster, whose district is first in Colorado and tied for 11th in the nation, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, with 24 percent of their 12,707 students in charter schools.
Charter schools are free public schools that operate independently from the districts they reside in. Although their openings must be district approved, they have their own governance, do their own hiring and are not regulated by the district.
The report lists Brighton 27J School District and Harrison 2 School District in Colorado Springs as tied for second in Colorado and tied for 14th with 21percent of their students in charters; Greeley comes in fourth in Colorado and 16th in the U.S. with 19 percent. Falcon School District 49, also in Colorado Springs, finished out the top five in Colorado and ranked 18th in the U.S. with 17 percent.
Messages left to the Washington-based nonprofit were not returned by press time.
The report, which looked at districts that had more than 10,000 students, said that over the past five years, charter school enrollment has grown by 80 percent, 1-in-20 students nationwide are in charter schools, and in 32 districts that ratio is 1-in-5.
The report took into consideration Colorado Department of Education numbers that included Charter School Institute schools that cross district boundaries, online academies that target students statewide and charters that support home schooled students, causing districts to be assigned students who did not reside within their boundaries.
If CDE numbers — which follow the funding of students — are used independently, Brighton 27J is first with 21 percent of its students in charter schools, Greeley and Harrison 2 are tied at second with 19 percent, and Adams 50 is fourth with 4 percent. Those numbers would tie Greeley for 13th in the nation and, of the five districts in that category, only one has more total students than Greeley.
This year, with the expansion of University Schools, Greeley moved into a tie for first with Brighton at 22 percent, and is expected to be closer to 25 percent for school year 2014-15 with the opening of Salida del Sol, Greeley’s sixth charter school. District 6 officials predict 1-in-4 Greeley students will be in charters next year.
The growth in Greeley has shifted students from district-run schools. However, Wayne Eads, chief operations officer, said it has been steady over time, so it takes a few years before the district starts to notice.
“When students leave a few from a school here and there, it doesn’t cost us any less to run those classrooms,” he said. “We can’t close a classroom or two. We can’t react immediately. Time has to pass before we catch up.”
When the district does catch up, it can mean closing and consolidating schools, which was the case a few years ago with six schools in the district, Eads said. However, District 6 continues to help its charters where it can.
“We continue to support our charter schools with training opportunities, and we let them buy services from us at cost,” he said.
According to its press release, the national organization is committed to advancing the public charter movement with a mission “to lead public education to unprecedented levels of academic achievement by fostering a strong charter sector.”
Saunders said in Adams 50 the group included about 2,500 students who were enrolled at Goal Academy, an online charter school whose corporate headquarters were physically located within the Adams 50 boundaries, but were authorized by the Charter School Institute.
According to Ethan Hemming, executive director of the Charter School Institute, those 2,500 students were based state wide, and CSI no longer authorizes Goal Academy. This year, it moved to the Falcon School District, Hemming said.
Charter schools in Colorado are authorized two ways, either through the board of education in the boundary they operate or through the Charter School Institute. When authorized by a district, funding is passed from the state through the district to the charter school and the district has the right to shut down schools that are not operating as expected through non-renewals. CSI schools receive their money from CSI and the district they are located in has no jurisdiction over them. CSI has slightly more than 10,000 students in 26 schools statewide.
None of Greeley’s schools are CSI schools as the district is considered to have exclusive charting authority, which means all charter schools must be approved by the District 6 board.
Other discrepancies in the report included assigning students to Harrison 2 from one CSI school and one Cheyenne Mountain School District school, a spokeswoman there said. However the report missed about 800 CSI students enrolled at High Point Academy in Brighton 27J and 4,000 Colorado Virtual Academy students in the Adams 12 Five Star District, which would have put it at 20 percent as well.
By all accounts, Brighton 27J is the fastest growing charter district in the state, something Superintendent Chris Fiedler said is more than welcome.
“We are also one of the fastest growing school districts in the state,” said Fiedler, who is a 1986 Greeley West High School graduate. “At the turn of the century, we had 5,000 students. Today, we are north of 16,000. We have more than tripled in just over a decade, and we’re still growing.”
Fiedler said the district has been thankful for the five charters it has authorized.
“Frankly, we needed the seats,” he said. “And we’ve always had a good relationship with them. We even carry the TABOR reserve for Eagle Ridge Academy to help keep them open. They are all our kids.”
Eads said Greeley has always been considered charter friendly because the board of education recognizes the value of parental choice.
“So long as Greeley parents continue to want to exercise choice, I don’t see any reason why we would stop authorizing new schools,” Eads said.
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