By Kim Gilmartin | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice
Douglas County has long been known as a community that values school choice, which is one reason a resolution recently advanced by the Douglas County School District (DCSD) Board of Education deserves much more attention than it has received.
The resolution, submitted to the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB), asks for changes to Colorado’s Charter Schools Act that would give local boards more authority to consider how a new charter school might affect schools that already exist. CASB has now published the proposal as Resolution #3, submitted by the DCSD Board of Education, for consideration at its September Delegate Assembly.
The language matters. The resolution would allow local boards to consider the “educational, programmatic, enrollment, and fiscal impacts” of a proposed charter on existing public schools. It would also allow boards to consider whether there is an “unmet educational need,” whether similar programming is already available, how many choices families already have, and whether a proposed school would unnecessarily duplicate existing programs.
The CASB materials are particularly clear about what the proposal would do, stating that it would “expand the grounds for which a local board might deny a new charter.”
That is what concerns me most.
There are already legitimate reasons to deny a charter application. A proposed school should have to demonstrate that it can educate students successfully, operate responsibly, maintain a viable budget, attract sufficient enrollment, and comply with the law. Those are appropriate questions for an authorizer to ask, and Colorado’s current charter process already requires applicants to address them in detail.
What Douglas County is proposing goes beyond that by asking local boards to consider what happens to existing district-run schools if families choose a charter. There is an important difference between asking whether the new school is financially sustainable and asking whether existing schools will remain financially sustainable if students leave them for the new charter. The first is responsible oversight. The second gives the existing school system an interest in protecting its own enrollment.
That creates a real tension in a system that is supposed to value parental choice. If a proposed charter attracts very little interest, it may not be viable. But if it attracts strong interest, those students will likely come from somewhere else, and under this proposal that movement of students could itself become part of the case against approving the school because of the effect it may have on existing schools.
The issue becomes even clearer when the resolution talks about “unmet educational need.” Who should decide whether that need exists? If hundreds of families want a new school, that should matter. Another school may offer a similar educational model, but it may be full, too far away, governed differently, or simply not the school those families want for their children. Families make decisions based on culture, leadership, discipline, geography, class size, governance, instructional approach, and the overall fit for their child.
The existence of one successful school should not automatically become an argument against opening another. In some cases, it may prove exactly the opposite by showing that there is enough demand to support more than one.
Declining enrollment is the central justification behind the proposal, and there is no question that declining enrollment creates real challenges for school districts. Buildings still cost money, staffing has to be adjusted, and programs may become harder to sustain. But declining enrollment does not mean there is no demand for new educational options, and Douglas County itself is a good example of why. Some parts of the district are declining while other areas continue to grow, and particular educational models can remain in high demand even when overall enrollment falls.
If families are leaving a school or district, the better question is “why.” Districts may need to consolidate buildings, adjust staffing, change programs, reduce expenses, or become more responsive to what families want. Those are difficult decisions, but they are part of operating a school system in a changing environment. Giving the system more authority to restrict alternatives does not solve the underlying problem.
The resolution also raises questions about enrollment verification. It proposes allowing local boards to require independent third-party verification of enrollment projections and letters of intent. There is a legitimate concern behind this because a charter school that opens with substantially fewer students than projected can face immediate financial problems. But the resolution refers generally to “several charter school failures in Colorado” without identifying those schools or establishing that inaccurate letters of intent were the reason they failed. Schools can struggle for many reasons, including governance problems, facilities delays, poor financial management, leadership issues, and enrollment shortfalls.
There is also a privacy concern that should not be dismissed. Charter applicants collect names, grade levels, and other information from families who submit letters of intent, and they can provide authorizers with aggregate information about how many students are interested and how those students break down by grade. What they should not have to do is turn over personally identifying information to the district or to a third-party verifier hired by the district.
That confidentiality matters because families considering a new charter are often genuinely nervous about their current school finding out. Some parents worry that their child could be viewed or treated differently if teachers or administrators know the family is considering another option. Whether that fear would ever materialize is not really the point. The concern is real to the parent, and charter applicants take that promise of confidentiality seriously.
Letters of intent also need to be understood for what they are. They demonstrate real interest, but they are not binding enrollment contracts. Families move, circumstances change, and parents change their minds. A better way to manage that risk is through regular enrollment and financial monitoring after a charter is approved. If enrollment comes in below projections, the school should have to revise its budget and demonstrate that it can still operate responsibly. If it cannot, the authorizer should have tools to delay the opening or take other action before students are placed in an unstable school.
There is another piece of the CASB agenda that deserves attention. CASB’s proposed legislative platform separately calls for limiting the role of the State Board of Education in new charter appeals to determining whether the local authorizer’s decision was “arbitrary and capricious.” One proposal would expand the grounds local boards can use to deny charter applications, while the other would narrow the role of the State Board when those denials are appealed. For Colorado’s charter community, that combination should raise serious questions.
All of this is happening while DCSD is also asking charter schools and families to support a $54 million Mill Levy Override for the November ballot. That matters because charter schools are not a small corner of the district. Roughly 26% of DCSD students are enrolled in charter schools, which means more than one in four families in the district has chosen a charter option. When the district asks that community to support a major funding measure, it is fair for charter leaders, parents, employees, and boards to consider whether the district is equally committed to protecting the educational choices those families have made.
The larger issue here is not whether charter schools should be accountable. They absolutely should be. Weak applications should be denied, and schools should be expected to maintain strong governance, sound academics, realistic enrollment assumptions, and balanced budgets. What concerns me is using the potential impact on existing schools as a reason to stop families from having access to a new option in the first place.
Once that becomes part of the standard, charter authorization begins to look less like an evaluation of quality and more like a way to protect the existing system from competition.
That is where I think Colorado needs to be very careful. The answer to declining enrollment is not less choice. It is giving families more reasons to stay.
Kim Gilmartin is founder and executive director of the Liberty Schools Initiative, a Colorado-based nonprofit focused on empowering parents to create new educational options. She is also a co-founder of Ascent Classical Academy Charter Schools.
Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.