State Board Rules in Favor of Ascent Classical Academy Flatirons
In an important victory for charter schools across the state of Colorado, the Colorado State Board of Education (“State Board”) voted 5-2 on Thursday to remand a decision by the Boulder Valley School District (“District”) to not review a charter school application from Ascent Classical Academy Flatirons (“ACAF”). The District refused to review the application on the unfounded basis that the application was incomplete.
“We’re grateful that the State Board, in its decision, recognized the importance of treating charter school applicants better than ACAF was treated,” said Miller Farmer Law attorney Tim Farmer, who represented ACAF in its appeal. “Applicants put countless hours, often on a volunteer basis, into creating an application and school districts must be held accountable if they don’t provide a substantive review of that work. It’s only fair.”
Under the Colorado Charter Schools Act, a school district is required to review applications timely submitted by charter school applicants. School districts are not free to decide if they want to review an application or not. The one caveat to that is that a district can choose not to review an application if that application is “incomplete.” There is a statutorily prescribed list of contents that make up a “complete” application.
ACAF worked for nearly a year in preparing and submitting its application to the District. Upon submission, the District requested additional information, which ACAF provided. Without any additional requests for information, the District’s board of education voted to declare the application “incomplete” rendering it denied under state law without any substantive review. The District’s singular reason in determining the application incomplete was “because it does not contain adequate reasons or replacement plans in support of the requested waivers from District policies.”
ACAF’s application actually did provide reasons for requested waivers and over one hundred pages of replacement policies. It remains baffling to ACAF that the District concluded the application, which was based off a similar application used by the founders for two previous schools (Golden View Classical Academy and Ascent Classical Academy Douglas County) that were approved, was “incomplete.” The State Board agreed with ACAF in finding that the District should have reviewed the application.
There is a question as to whether or not rationale and replacement plans for district policy waivers are part of the statutorily required content (see C.R.S. §22-30.5-106(1)(o)). Representatives from the Colorado Attorney General’s office stated during the hearing that the statute is ambiguous. The State Board did not rule on this aspect of the dispute.
On remand, the District will have thirty (30) days to reconsider its decision, and early indications are that the District plans to provide a substantive review of the application.