Loading your audio article
The Boulder Valley school board on Tuesday voted unanimously to deny the charter school application for Grove Elementary School, which was proposed as an offshoot of Broomfield’s Bal Swan Children’s Center.
Concerns included the viability of the plan for a permanent facility, as well as concerns that the application didn’t adequately address special education services. The proposal was for an inclusive school that could meet the needs of neurodiverse learners and students with other disabilities.
“I don’t think the proposal was as strong as it needed to be,” school board member Alex Medler said.
Organizers have said the proposal for Grove Elementary is the result of many years of requests from parents. Bal Swan, a nonprofit child care center that serves about 180 students ages 2 to 6, is located at 1145 East 13th Ave. The center is less than a mile from Boulder Valley’s boundaries with both the Adams 12 and Jefferson County school districts. None of Boulder Valley’s existing charter schools are located in Broomfield.
To help the school board make a decision, the application was reviewed by the District Accountability Committee, staff members and two external reviewers — Colorado Association of Charter School Authorizers Executive Director Mackenzie Khan and Center for Learner Equity Policy Consultant Wendy Tucker.
Reviewers praised the school vision and support from the community, while raising concerns in areas that included enrollment, budget, facilities and special education programming.
Organizers were hoping to open Grove as soon as this August. The plan was to start in a rented building with early elementary grades and add a grade each year. At full buildout, the school would enroll up to 350 students.
The application proposed moving to a permanent building in year three. In the denial, the school board questioned the “ambitious timeline” to complete the new building, as well as the cost and what would be shared between Bal Swan and the elementary school.
Bal Swan, through a separate building corporation called the Bal Swan Building Fund, is raising money for a $30 million facility that would include an infant-through-preschool center, a therapy center and a new elementary school.
Reviewers also raised concerns that the school’s proposed budget wouldn’t be adequate to deliver the described program, while the school board’s denial noted that “reliance on volunteers and paraprofessionals as well as currently unrealized grants and partnerships presents a concern.”
The plan, according to the application, was for the school to provide “an inclusive, responsive learning environment that challenges and supports all students, including learners who may struggle in traditional schools. Our approach to instruction will promote community, empathy, confidence and academic achievement.”
Rebecca Hubbard, vice chairperson of the Grove founding board, said at a previous school board meeting that Grove would look at more than academics when measuring success.
“Yes, kids meet metrics, but much, much more than that they are fulfilled, compassionate humans with a strong sense of their values and strength as well as awareness and understanding of others,” she said.
Organizers have said social emotional learning would be infused throughout the school day. The school also would use an experiential, project-based learning model and provide a lower student-to-teacher ratio for more individualized attention.
Grove Elementary was the first charter application in Boulder Valley in more than five years and would have been the district’s first new charter school in more than 20 years.
Four of the district’s five charter schools — Boulder Prep High School, Horizons K-8, Summit Middle and Peak to Peak K-12 — opened between 1996 and 2000. Justice High split off from Boulder Prep in 2002, making it the last charter school to open. Summit received approval in 2018 to open a charter high school, but failed to find a building.
While the application was denied, school board members encouraged the applicants to address the concerns and try again. Medler also acknowledged the need for the district to better serve neurodiverse learners.
“I know we have a large community of parents of neurodiverse kids who are interested in innovation, interested in different approaches, and that we as a district should figure out a way to do that,” he said.