As Summit School District considered whether to give up its exclusive authority to approve and oversee charter schools within county boundaries, district leaders and educators increasingly lined up against the proposal while supporters for a Park County charter school continued pushing for additional public education options in Summit County. 

By the time the Summit School District Board of Education voted 5-1 on Thursday, June 4, to retain that authority, objections had racked up from the teachers union, district principals, the district’s finance committee and a majority of board members. On the other hand, proponents of the High Rockies Community School largely included staff from the charter school along with local parents and educators seeking a quicker path for the charter to expand into Summit County. 

The vote effectively denied a request from High Rockies Community School, a Fairplay-based charter school seeking to establish a Summit County location as early as the 2026-27 school year. Had the board agreed, charter oversight responsibilities would have shifted from the local district to the Colorado Charter School Institute. 

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The decision doesn’t prevent High Rockies from pursuing a Summit County campus, but it means the organization must now seek authorization through Summit School District if it hopes to open locally. 

While nearly an hour of public comment prior to the vote reflected diverging viewpoints, the board’s discussion primarily focused on concerns about oversight, accountability and process. 

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“I don’t think we should treat this request as an emergency situation where we need to make decisions that pretty much permanently change the way we do business through thoughtful process and input,” said board member Julie Shapiro prior to the vote. 

Finance committee raises formal opposition

The most recent addition to a growing wave of opposition to the charter school’s request came Thursday from the Summit School District Finance Committee.

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Reading a letter approved unanimously by committee members, Kara Drake, the district’s chief financial officer, said the committee opposed relinquishing chartering authority due to concerns about countywide enrollment declines, long-term financial stressors and loss of local oversight. Both Drake and Superintendent Tony Byrd noted that the school district receives around $13,000 in per-pupil funding from the state, meaning if around 30 students left the district to instead attend High Rockies, Summit County schools would face a loss of nearly $400,000. 

“Any potential revenue loss is a serious negative that we should strive to avoid,” Drake said on behalf of the finance committee. 

The letter also said district officials are already projecting enrollment declines tied to falling birthrates and warned that a charter school could further reduce funding for neighborhood schools. Finance committee members also raised concerns that charter staffing models and salary structures could increase competition for teachers within an already tight labor market. 

Former school board member and finance committee member Stan Katz said the issue extends beyond finances to questions of local governance and control. 

“Even if some philanthropists were to give the district or the charter school a ton of money — so that finances weren’t an issue anymore — the potential loss of district control over its own operations would still be more than sufficient to justify a rejection of this proposal,” Katz said. “Once you transfer authority, you’ve abandoned all your local prerogatives.” 

The finance committee joined other groups in the district that have already voiced opposition to the proposal from High Rockies. 

Joe Kassay, president of the Summit County Education Association and a social studies and outdoor education teacher at Summit High School, previously urged the board to reject the request. He said the local teachers union overwhelmingly disapproved of the board overturning a precedent policy to oversee and approve of charter schools interested in Summit County. Kassay argued that limited public resources should remain focused on strengthening existing neighborhood schools rather than creating a parallel system that could draw students and funding away from the district. 

Additionally, district principals also submitted a letter opposing the proposal, according to Byrd, citing concerns about district oversight and the potential impact a new charter school could have on the district’s ability to maintain its existing staff and programs. 

Board members cite authority, timing, accountability concerns

During roughly 45 minutes of comments before the vote, Byrd and most members expressed concerns about precedent and process. 

Byrd, who presented his opposition to the request from High Rockies Community School at a board meeting Thursday, May 21, said while he’s not opposed to charter schools in general, the board’s responsibility was to determine whether relinquishing authority served the district’s long-term interests. 

Shapiro framed the issue primarily as one of process rather than ideology. 

“The decision tonight is about precedent — it’s about process,” Shapiro said. “It’s not really about the school at this point, and I know that may sound, I don’t know, callous, but it’s about the kids and the students we serve broadly.”

She noted that the request arrived on an accelerated timeline and during a period when the district was already at the height of debate over school consolidation decisions, enrollment declines and long-term fiscal planning.

“I don’t feel like a responsible board member to say that a 30-day process to break all precedent and make these decisions is an appropriate use of the entrusted decision-making power that our entire community has put in us,” Shapiro said. 

Board member Vanessa Agee emphasized that the question before the board was not simply about supporting or opposing charter schools altogether, but about governance. 

“This decision becomes about whether we as a school board will be able to hold the charter school accountable,” Agee said. “If we give up our chartering authority to CSI, we would potentially have a school that is its own separate district within our district.” 

Board President Consuelo Redhorse said she couldn’t in good faith agree to the request from High Rockies because not enough community voices had been included in the discussion. She also argued that local officials are better positioned than a state agency like the Colorado Charter School Institute to understand the unique needs of Summit County students. 

“Relinquishing control to an outside chartering authority, while they do have expertise in microschools, they don’t have the expertise of being in Summit County,” Redhorse said. 

Board member Whitney Horner said district policy and longstanding governance structures should guide decision-making while acknowledging the diversity of student needs across the community. She said that all members of the board care deeply about all students and have never viewed students only through a financial lens. 

“It is discouraging to me that I have heard multiple times that some parents think that we think their child is just a price tag because I really don’t want that to be the case, and I never want to say anything that reflects that,” Horner said. 

Lone dissent supports expanded school choice

The only vote in favor of relinquishing authority came from the board’s newest-elected member, Jenniffer Gonzalez, who read a prepared statement in support of expanding educational options for local families. 

Gonzalez noted that charter schools have operated within Colorado’s public education system for more than three decades and said Summit County families have long expressed interest in tuition-free alternatives like High Rockies. 

“Families deserve access to a variety of high-quality public education options,” Gonzalez said. “Providing families with more choices within public education can demonstrate that we’re listening to our community and responding to their needs at a time when public trust in educational institutions is critically important.” 

Following her remarks, board member Gayle Jones Westerburg reminded colleagues that the vote remained narrowly focused on governance authority rather than the broader merits of charter schools. 

“I wanted to bring us back to focus on our task at hand tonight,” Westerburg said. 

Debate likely to endure

Supporters of High Rockies Community School repeatedly stated during public comment that the proposed microschool model would expand educational options for Summit County students in need of alternatives to traditional classroom settings. 

Laurel Dumas, the school’s executive director and co-founder, said the school would move forward with a formal charter application through Summit School District following the board’s decision. 

However, she said, High Rockies Community School leaders and Summit County board members plan on “continuing to advocate for a CSI release, given their distinct expertise with microschools.” 

Agee later addressed Dumas’s comment, saying she disliked the prospect of revisiting the issue of chartering authority repeatedly. 

“I would not like to have this discussion at every single meeting, “Agee said. “I would love to see the energy not put into a fight to continue to make us change our mind, but to respect our decision, and then do a really amazing application that shows a respect for our students.”

For now, the vote ensures that any future charter school proposal in Summit County will remain subject to local review and approval.