DPS Gives Green Light to Two Charter Schools After Appeals to the State Board

The Denver Public Schools (DPS) Board of Education voted 4-3 to let Monarch Montessori open this fall after every board member expressed their distaste for the State Board of Education ruling against them at the February charter school appeal hearings. The board met in Executive Session for almost an hour before coming out and receiving public comment on the appeal remands and then voting.

Monarch Montessori plans to open K-2 in the old Samsonite building along I-70 in northeast Denver. The school is already open as a preschool and will add a grade level until they serve grades K-5.

The DPS board also approved Northeast Academy to operate as a K-5 next year, this after an appeal to the State Board when the DPS board voted to take away K and 6th grade for the 2012-2013 school year. The Superintendent said earlier in the day that his board would be voting to close Northeast Academy entirely and the charter school responded with a counter proposal.

Northeast Academy was deemed a Turnaround school in 2009 after several years of poor test scores. They operated under a management company for the 2010-2011 school year and test scores fell even further. In May 2011 the governing board hired Jere Pearcy, with a strong Core Knowledge background to lead the school. While significant changes have been made at the school this year, the DPS board continued to express doubt that the school could improve. Northeast Academy faces renewal in the fall.