CENTENNIAL, Colo. — Colorado Skies Academy, a Centennial-based charter school with a focus on aviation and aerospace education, abruptly announced its closure on Friday, just 16 days before the start of the school year.
The announcement, which came in an email on Friday at 8:17 p.m., leaves parents scrambling to find alternative schools for their children.
The school cited financial challenges as the reason for the immediate closure. A spokeswoman for the Colorado Charter School Institute, which serves as the school's authorizer, said there were "unanticipated financial developments" over the summer which, caused the school’s viability to "rapidly deteriorate."
CSI acknowledged the sudden closure was not ideal, but said it supported the board's decision to close now, rather risk closing mid-school year which would have been more challenging.
Still, the timing of the announcement has particularly frustrated parents, who received the closure notice hours after the school posted on Facebook about an upcoming back-to-school night event.
"They posted in the morning, come join us for back-to-school night. Then they send an email in the evening saying sorry, there's gonna be no school at all," parent Erin Hess said. Her son Connor was set to attend sixth grade at the 6-8 school.
In the closure email, school officials wrote: "It is with heavy hearts that we share the difficult news that Colorado Skies Academy will not open for the 2025–26 school year. Despite every effort over the past year to secure additional funding and stabilize our budget, we are no longer financially able to operate the school."
The school's closure affects families who had specifically chosen the institution for its unique aviation-focused curriculum.
"This school is the only one of its kind in the nation, and we were very excited about it," Hess said. "It has good class sizes, a smaller size school, and had really fun things like drone soccer."
Colorado Skies Academy started in 2019 but had been struggling financially for some time. The school was originally part of the Cherry Creek School District until this past school year, when it requested to be released from Cherry Creek's charter authority and moved to the Charter School Institute. Warning signs appeared at public meetings, including a February 2024 Cherry Creek School Board meeting, where school board director Anne Egan expressed concern about the school's finances.
"We have real concerns about Colorado Skies Academy, particularly around their financial performance and budget," Egan said at the meeting. "The numbers are much the same as last year, and we're concerned the school won't even be financially viable through the end of this school year. Recruitment numbers continue to decline and without adding a significant number of new students or a large financial donation, the school will run out of cash. There is no current plan to meet financial obligations, including any balloon payments required to meet bond obligations."
Earlier, at a 2023 Cherry Creek School Board meeting, Colorado Skies Academy Executive Director Christa Coryell acknowledged the school's difficulties.
"Being the first of its kind has presented a unique set of challenges, and combined with the obstacles faced during the global pandemic, Colorado Skies Academy has struggled to establish its footing and move from a startup model to a steady state model," Coryell said at the meeting.
Parents like Hess are now facing significant challenges in finding alternative schools on such short notice.
"I reached out to five schools. I submitted applications for five schools. We're waitlisted for all of them," Hess said. "I have not been able to find any middle schools that are accepting sixth graders without a waitlist at this time."
She, like others who spoke to 9NEWS, is particularly angry about the timing, just before the start of school.
"Just pulling the rug out from under us at the 11th hour is just terrible," Hess said. "Any kind of warning would have been fine. There's no need to send out undue panic, but just to turn off the lights all at once is just tragic."
The school has scheduled a family information meeting for Wednesday at 6 p.m. to provide guidance and answer questions about the transition. According to the school's FAQ, "CSI and Colorado Skies Academy will provide information and support to help you identify available options, including nearby CSI-authorized charter schools and district schools."
The school's website has been changed to just one page with the closure notice, and its Facebook page is now down. 9NEWS attempted to reach Colorado Skies Academy for additional comment but did not immediately hear back.
CSI later told 9NEWS, while they serve as the authorizer of the school, they do not have authority to close a school outside of a formal revocations process.
However, CSI said due to "serious" concerns about their financial stability, CSI issued an emergency revocation Friday afternoon. That evening, the Colorado SKIES Academy Board voted to voluntarily close the school.
CSI said they had been monitoring the school's financial health and said at the end of the last school year, it appeared to be on "relatively stable footing." However, CSI noted "significant changes" over the summer which included "unanticipated financial developments."
The statement did not elaborate about those changes. CSI said its committed to supporting families and will work to provide other enrollment options.