Kids in school Learning
Photo courtesy ofTima Miroshnichenko (5428267 Pexels).

Decades After Conception Charter Schools are Bogged Down in Controversy

Nearly 30 years ago, the Colorado Charter School Act was passed opening the door up for more school choice within the state. However, even though the act was passed in 1993, the addition of charter schools has been slow.

The same year the act passed, the state’s first two charter schools formed without much opposition. But, shortly after the first two schools were formed, other charter school applicants saw stronger opposition all across the state.

According to an article published by the Denver Post, charter schools struggled to get approval during the first year after the act was passed, but then things changed when the Colorado League of Charter Schools launched in 1994 that provided basic support for school founders “as they battled resistance at every turn.” By 1998, there were 61 charter schools in the state serving 13,990 students.

The Colorado League of Charter Schools website reports that there were 265 charter schools serving over 134,000 students during the 21-22 school year. But news headlines across the state have still reported on controversies involving the formation of charter schools. Municipalities in the Denver Metro and cities like Woodland Park and Durango have had charter school applications face denials by school boards.

Charter School Battle in Woodland Park Leads to Lawsuits and Board Member Recalls

In 2020, the Merit Academy applied to the Woodland Park RE-2 School District to become the first charter school in the city and district. But, the application was denied by the district’s board of education on Dec. 28 that same year.

After the school’s charter application was denied, it still opened as a contract school under the Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services in Colorado Springs to start the 21-22 school year. Then during the school board election that took place in November 2021, a group of candidates labeling themselves as “conservative” ran for seats on the board campaigning on a promise to add Merit Academy as a charter school within the district.

The four “conservative” board members won the election and quickly moved forward with efforts to add Merit Academy to the district as a charter school. The move though quickly saw opposition from a number of district staff and community members.

The move to charter the Merit Academy came about so that the school would have access to state funds that the district receives per student. Merit was also leasing an office space that used to be a hardware store and chartering them into the district allowed them to share the district’s middle school building.

The group opposing the new board responded by filing a lawsuit due to the board members violating open meeting laws during a meeting when chartering Merit Academy was discussed. In May, a district judge filed an injunction to order the school board to “comply with the state’s Open Meetings Laws by clearly, honestly and forthrightly listing all future agenda items.”

The group opposing the school board used the court order as ammo to continue their fight. The next step was a big movement to recall three of the newly elected board members.

The organizers of the recall recruited several petitioners to launch a campaign to get nearly 3,000 signatures to force a recall election. But in the end, the recall effort failed as a few hundred signatures got denied by the county clerk’s office.

Meanwhile, the Merit Academy was approved as a charter school within the district and started the 22-23 school year as Woodland Park’s first-ever charter school. The school also gained a new location and is now sharing the Woodland Park Middle School building.

The Difference Between Private Schools and Charter Schools

Whenever the debate about whether or not a charter school should be added to a school district, it seems as if the differences between charter schools and private schools get clouded. The Method Schools website explains the differences between charter and private schools.

Probably the most obvious difference has to do with how the schools are funded. The Colorado Department of Education website gives the following definition: “A charter school in Colorado is a public school operated by a group of parents, teachers and/or community members as a semi-autonomous school of choice, operating under a contract or ‘charter’ contract between the members of the charter school community and either the local board of education or the state Charter School Institute (CSI), depending on which entity oversees the charter school.”

Unlike private schools, charter schools are funded by the state and federal government meaning that tuition is free to students. Private schools are funded through grants, donations, and charging tuition.

Charter schools are open to any student in a given jurisdiction, whereas private schools sometimes implement admission requirements. Many private schools are tied to religious groups or political organizations, but charter schools are legally obligated to keep programs, admissions, and hiring free from religious and political influence.

Charter Schools Thomas Krannawitter
Photo courtesy of Trevor Phipps.

Why Do Some Strongly Oppose Charter Schools?

According to constitutional scholar and lecturer Dr. Thomas Krannawitter, teachers’ unions often lead the fight against charter schools for a number of reasons. He said that one reason the opposition comes about is that public schools have a different pay and compensation structure than charter schools. Public schools hire and promote based on years of job experience and education, whereas many charter schools hire and promote based more on job performance.

“The second thing unions tend to not like about charter schools is that charters by definition have incredible leeway on their curriculum,” Krannawitter explained. “But for many neighborhood public schools, their curriculum is more or less set by the state board of education. And then the last thing is funding for the schools. In Colorado, the funding mostly follows the student. So if a student going to a public school leaves and goes to a charter school, then teachers’ unions see that as a loss of revenue. So their preference would be that the charter school just didn’t exist because then there would only be one option there.”

In the end, the battle to add charter schools into a district has been easier since the effort started in the state, but many still see hoops to jump through and controversies when they try to get a charter school added.


The Maverick Observer is an online free-thinking publication interested in the happenings in our region. We launched in February 2020 to hold our politicians and businesses accountable. We hope to educate, inform, entertain, and infuse you with a sense of community.


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Trevor Phipps
For about 20 years of his life, Trevor Phipps worked in the restaurant industry as a chef, bartender and manager until he decided to make a career change. For the last five years, Trevor has been a freelance journalist reporting the news in the Southern Colorado region. He specializes on crime, sports and investigating history. Trevor is a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Teller County called The Mountain Jackpot and is the managing editor for Pikes Peak Senior News, which is a bimonthly senior citizen lifestyle magazine. When Trevor is not reporting on the news, he is spending as much time outside hiking, camping and fishing. He also likes to keep up his cooking skills and spends time mastering his barbecuing and other culinary skills. Trevor has recently taken up an interest in 3D printing as a hobby.

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