Chalkbeat

Controversial group that opened ‘Colorado’s first public Christian school’ will close after 13 years

2026-08-18T22:47:51+00:00

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An education group that last year authorized “Colorado’s first public Christian school” soon will dissolve, following a Monday night vote by a key member institution.

The school board in School District 49 unanimously approved the dissolution of Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES.

Monday’s vote represents a major turnabout from two months ago, when the District 49 board briefly considered dropping out of the co-op but opted to stay another year. After 13 years of existence, ERBOCES leaves a legacy of school choice advocacy and a long string of controversies.

The change of fortune for ERBOCES comes after growing scrutiny by state education officials, who this month cracked down on the co-op over what they said was an improperly constituted board, invalid contracts, and misspent state money.

In addition to launching the “public Christian school,” called Riverstone Academy, ERBOCES has created dozens of publicly funded homeschool enrichment programs in the last few years. The flood of programs, including some that paid for ski passes and sports camps and others that subsidized private schools, drew the ire of state lawmakers last spring.

ERBOCES is one of 21 such public education co-ops in Colorado. Most are composed of several school districts that band together to provide services such as special education. ERBOCES has operated differently, opening schools and programs that serve students across the state.

About a dozen parents, students, and homeschool program providers spoke at Monday’s meeting, with several urging the board to help homeschool enrichment programs that are now in limbo and prevent students from being “collateral damage.” Others said dissolving ERBOCES will help the district avoid reputational damage, legal fees, and fines that might come with staying in the co-op.

ERBOCES’ dissolution, which will take place over the coming school year, means the group can no longer authorize any schools or programs. During the wind-down process, the five-member District 49 board will take over as the co-op’s governing body and the district’s business office will assume financial oversight.

ERBOCES will no longer be led by an executive director as of Sept. 15, according to the resolution approved Monday.

In addition, District 49 will become the authorizer during the 2026-27 school year of six online schools previously authorized by ERBOCES: Williamsburg Academy, Pikes Peak Online School, Summit Connections Academy, and an elementary, middle, and high school all under the Colorado Preparatory Academy brand.

Less clear is the fate of ERBOCES’ homeschool enrichment programs, which last year enrolled more than 8,000 students, most in one-day-a-week classes. Some closed this summer but more than 40 are up for approval by the state.

According to Monday’s resolution, District 49 will not take on those programs. State officials are expected to release more information this week.

Different perspectives on ERBOCES

While District 49 board members all voted for the resolution Monday, they had different perspectives on what brought the problem to a head this summer.

Board member Mike Heil urged the audience to remember that ERBOCES officials were the decision-makers who were “testing the law and finally got caught at it.”

“We know for fact now, as more evidence has come forward, that some of these homeschool enrichment programs were essentially subsidizing private religious schools, and you can’t do that with public money,” he said.

Board President Marie LaVere-Wright said publicly funded homeschool enrichment has been “highly, highly, highly unregulated” in Colorado because the original law that allowed it was broad and vague.

“That doesn’t mean anybody … did something illegal necessarily because they operated in an unregulated environment,” she said.

LaVere-Wright, who helped start ERBOCES and previously served on its board, described the group’s dissolution as an awful situation, but said it’s the right thing to do.

Board member Lori Thompson, who recently joined the ERBOCES board, said the group has done incredible things.

“Was every step correct?” she said. “Anyone can be a Monday morning quarterback, but I am proud of ERBOCES.”

Constant controversies prompted state concerns

The demise of ERBOCES comes after a stream of controversies last school year. Those include revelations that the co-op launched Riverstone Academy at the behest of a conservative law firm to spark a lawsuit over the question of public funding for religious schools. ERBOCES filed a religious liberty lawsuit against the state in February, but the case fizzled when Riverstone closed permanently in June.

ERBOCES has also drawn criticism because, for years, some of its board members have been ineligible under state law. Also, the co-op has often used contractors and subcontractors that effectively shield its programs from state oversight and public scrutiny.

State lawmakers addressed some concerns about ERBOCES last spring by putting strict new limits on how and where such co-ops can authorize schools and programs. But the ongoing tumult seemed to be wearing on the group’s three members and it appeared member defections might tank ERBOCES this summer.

State law requires such co-ops to have at least two member institutions, and one must be a school district.

The Elizabeth School District dropped out of ERBOCES in June. District 49 considered it but opted not to. The third member, Pikes Peak State College, announced that it would leave the group in mid-August.

As that deadline neared, Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova urged ERBOCES to dissolve. She also chastised the group over another emerging controversy: The co-op’s plan to lend a Woodland Park charter school $3 million.

But a week before Pikes Peak was set to withdraw, ERBOCES officials unearthed an old agreement that required more notice and the college agreed to stay till next summer.

For a few days it seemed that ERBOCES would be able to stay open. But on Aug. 13., Córdova threw the book at ERBOCES. In a second letter urging the co-op to dissolve, she suggested that Pikes Peak State College never legally joined and that many of the group’s contracts are void because its board has been improperly constituted for years.

She also ordered ERBOCES to immediately repay the state for funding provided to Riverstone Academy, citing a recent court decision.

That night, District 49 Superintendent Peter Hilts recommended to his school board that ERBOCES be dissolved and Monday’s vote was quickly scheduled.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

The end could be near for the Colorado education group that opened ‘public Christian school’

2026-08-14T21:40:55+00:00

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A controversial Colorado education group that launched a now-defunct “public Christian school” last year could soon dissolve after the state’s top education official urged the move this week and the group’s most crucial member considers leaving.

The 13-year-old group — Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES — authorizes six online schools and a host of publicly funded programs for homeschool students. If the Monument-based co-op closes, some schools and programs might move to other authorizers, and some might permanently close.

In a Thursday letter to ERBOCES, Education Commissioner Susana Córdova pushed the group to dissolve, citing legal violations and questionable conduct. She suggested one of the group’s two member institutions never legally joined; that many of the group’s contracts are void because its board has been improperly constituted for years; and that it has misspent state money, including by funding private schools.

The 5-page letter represents the state’s most aggressive effort yet to hold ERBOCES accountable and reflects the extent to which the group has been a thorn in the education department’s side.

ERBOCES officials have long said their goal is to provide innovative education options to Colorado families, but critics argue that the co-op pushes the boundaries of — and in some cases breaks — state law.

Ken Witt, the executive director of ERBOCES, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

In her letter, Córdova ordered ERBOCES to repay the state by Tuesday for around $300,000 given to the “public Christian school,” Riverstone Academy, and provide the department with a host of documents. The demand for repayment is surprising because the state previously backpedaled on a suggestion that it could claw back the money given to Riverstone.

The rationale presented in the letter was a court ruling this week that invalidated a 2025 school board agreement that allowed Riverstone to open last summer.

Because the agreement “was null and void, ERBOCES was never authorized to submit” Riverstone students for state funding, Córdova wrote.

Riverstone received the state funding before it closed permanently in May.

Co-op has recently faced member defections

ERBOCES has spent much of the summer with its future in jeopardy — losing members and struggling to find new ones. State law requires such co-ops to have at least two member institutions, and one must be a school district.

Currently, ERBOCES’ two members are School District 49 in El Paso County and Pikes Peak State College. In June, the Elizabeth school district left the group. Pikes Peak announced around the same time that it would leave the group in mid-August, but as the exit date neared, college officials agreed to stay till next June.

The school board in District 49, which has been ERBOCES’ most stalwart member and its fiscal agent, also considered leaving ERBOCES this summer but opted to stay for another year.

That could change next week.

Superintendent Peter Hilts recommended the dissolution of ERBOCES to the school board Thursday evening, saying there’s no longer a legitimate, responsible path forward for the co-op.

He praised ERBOCES’ efforts to launch new schools and programs, then said, “but Icarus is coming back to Earth” — referring to a Greek myth in which a character flies too close to the sun and falls.

The board will hold a special meeting Monday to discuss the matter.

Board member Mike Heil, who led the charge to exit ERBOCES earlier this summer, said by email Friday that being part of ERBOCES is damaging the district’s reputation. He said the co-op has created some excellent programs, but that officials there have shown poor judgement.

He also noted ERBOCES’s inability to attract a new member this summer.

“I interpret the lack of suitors to be a collective, statewide referendum on ERBOCES, and their dissolution is therefore correct,” Heil said.

Board member Holly Withers said by phone she was stunned when Hilts suggested that ERBOCES should dissolve because he’s been a supporter of the group and because in June the board discussed the issue and decided to stay.

“I was willing to stay involved in ERBOCES on a probationary type level while they get their affairs in order,” she said.

Withers said she trusts Hilts’ recommendation that ERBOCES should dissolve, but she worries about the families that will be affected and hopes the co-op has a plan to help them.

Last year, ERBOCES online schools enrolled about 4,700 students and its homeschool enrichment programs enrolled more than 8,000 students. The future of many of those programs is up in the air due to state law changes.

Education chief’s letter cites numerous concerns

Córdova’s letter to ERBOCES cited numerous problems, some dating back years and some surfacing in the last month.

Among the concerns she cited are:

That Pikes Peak State College was never a legitimate member of ERBOCES because there’s no documentation showing its governing board approved its membership as required by law.
That ERBOCES’ board has not been properly constituted “for several years, possibly over a decade,” which means board decisions during that time are void.
ERBOCES’ plan to loan $3 million to a charter school in Woodland Park. She said there’s “no legal reason a loan for the benefit of another district’s constituents can plausibly be considered a reasonable and necessary expense,” and therefore is invalid.
ERBOCES’ payment of nearly $800,000 to a private Christian school last school year, which the department suspects is directly funding tuition for private school students.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school district rejects controversial reading curriculum because of errors, Texas focus

2026-08-14T00:00:39+00:00

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On Wednesday, elementary schools in a small southwestern Colorado district stopped using a controversial reading curriculum developed by the state of Texas.

It was the third day of school.

The sudden shift came a day after the Montezuma-Cortez school board voted 4-3 to reject the new curriculum, called Bluebonnet, and four days after the district’s superintendent pledged that Biblical material would be removed from lessons.

The controversy over Bluebonnet likely has staff at the district’s three elementary schools scrambling for replacement lessons this week. The debate has also raised questions about the number of errors in the curriculum, whether a Texas-built product is right for Colorado students, and how the curriculum was adopted with little notice over the summer.

Colorado school districts don’t have to use state-approved reading curriculum, but they must ensure their curriculum meets state academic standards.

Justin Schmitt, the district’s executive director of academic services, didn’t specify what reading curriculum the district’s elementary schools are using now.

He said by email that district leaders are working with school staff on next steps.

Board Vice President Laura DeWitt, who has a fifth grade daughter, said at Tuesday’s board meeting that she looked at some of the Bluebonnet materials on the first day of school and found what she described as “robot errors” — mistakes probably generated by AI.

A story about a Japanese man who visited Houston to plant rice in 1904 includes a map that shows Houston next to the Florida panhandle, instead of in Texas.

DeWitt showed a printout of the erroneous map at the meeting, drawing a chuckle from one person and a “wow” from someone else.

Such mistakes are in addition to thousands of mistakes in Bluebonnet that Texas is already paying $8 million to fix.

Board member Barbara Mate said when she visited classrooms on the first couple days of school, she saw reading lessons centered on Texas.

“I viewed a lot of stuff about Texas and Houston and San Antonio and migrant workers, and Texas and Texas,” she said. “I just wondered why we’re not representing our current demographic.”

The 2,200-student Montezuma-Cortez district in May adopted a school improvement model borrowed from the Houston school district. When that district, the largest in Texas, adopted Bluebonnet in late June, Montezuma-Cortez administrators soon followed suit.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Montezuma-Cortez board members raised concerns that Bluebonnet’s use was announced just weeks before the school year started with no analysis to ensure it meets Colorado academic standards, no public review process, and no school board vote.

While several board members were critical of Bluebonnet, most said they supported the school improvement model from Houston. It’s called the New Education System and is a highly structured system that includes fast-paced teacher-led instruction, daily monitoring of student progress, and immediate re-teaching for students who aren’t proficient.

Some board members asked Superintendent Eddie Ramirez pointed questions about mysterious changes to an agreement with the Houston school district the board approved in May. The original version didn’t mention Bluebonnet, but the one Ramirez signed in June did.

Ramirez assigned blame to district lawyers, and said he didn’t notice the change.

“What I am testifying to you and telling the board here tonight is that I had no knowledge that it said Bluebonnet,” he said. “I signed the document thinking that it was vetted by the lawyer, and that it was agreed upon.”

Some board members seemed skeptical of Ramirez’s explanation and suggested there are “integrity issues” at play, but said it was a matter to be addressed another day.

Board member Mike Lynch defended Ramirez.

“He’s trying to implement something for our district. The board’s job is the why, and the superintendent’s job is the how,” he said. “He was doing the how and the document was changed without his knowledge.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school board involved in ‘public Christian school’ drama violated open meetings law, judge rules

2026-08-12T21:04:41+00:00

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A Colorado school board violated the state’s open meetings law by concealing the true nature of a “public Christian school” the board allowed to open last year, a state judge ruled Tuesday.

In addition, the decision by Pueblo District Court Judge Michelle Chostner found an open meetings violation related to an appointment the school board made last winter.

Together, these findings represent a major — and potentially expensive — defeat for the Pueblo County School District 70 school board, the defendant in the lawsuit.

Chostner’s ruling invalidates the February appointment of Susie Carnes to a vacant seat on the Pueblo 70 school board, and requires a new meeting so the four other board members can vote to fill the seat. Tuesday’s ruling also invalidates a June 2025 agreement approved by the Pueblo 70 school board that allowed the launch of the “public Christian school.”

That school, Riverstone Academy, closed permanently in May, but the court ruling could open the way for the state to claw back around $300,000 in public funding given to the school

The Pueblo 70 school board must also pay the plaintiffs’ attorney fees, the judge said.

The ruling is a win for Jonathan Lewis, Tara Stroesenreuther, and Adolph Vigil, the three school board candidates who brought the lawsuit in March after they were passed over for the vacant board seat.

The Pueblo 70 school board voted earlier this summer to authorize an immediate appeal if the ruling ordered the removal of a board member or a meeting to fill a board vacancy. As of mid–day Wednesday, no appeal paperwork had been filed with the court.

A Pueblo 70 spokesperson said by email Wednesday the district doesn’t comment on active litigation.

Although in their lawsuit the plaintiffs sought a vote to fill the vacant seat that Carnes filled, they wanted it to happen under slightly different conditions than what the ruling prescribed. That is, with voting only by the three board members who remained at a Feb. 10 meeting after one member had a seizure and departed. That scenario, which the judge did not require, would potentially yield a vote for one of the plaintiffs, not Carnes.

Asked about whether the state would seek to recover public dollars it previously gave to Riverstone Academy, a Colorado Department of Education spokesman said by email Wednesday that, “We are reviewing the decision to determine whether it will impact funding.”

Last fall, department officials suggested they could claw back Riverstone’s funding following an audit, but subsequently backpedaled on that.

The 30-student school, which used Christian curriculum and offered students a “Christian foundation,” was intended to spark a lawsuit over the question of public funding for religious schools that would go to the U.S. Supreme Court. That lawsuit was filed last winter, but fizzled when the school closed.

Chostner invalidated the Riverstone agreement approved by the Pueblo 70 board because the board did not reveal Riverstone’s religious character or its purpose in two meeting agendas or meetings. The district’s lawyer, who helped launch Riverstone, had shared that information in a private letter to the board.

“Riverstone’s true nature should have been made clear both to the public, and to the voting board members, by way of the agendas,” Chostner wrote.

Chostner noted that some board members seemed to be in the dark about Riverstone, even as they voted to approve the agreement in June 2025. Two board members testified in court that they hadn’t read the email from the lawyer, Brad Miller, prior to either meeting where the board considered the Riverstone agreement.

Two others “did read the email but nonetheless during their testimony questioned whether they fully understood the import of the email,” she wrote.

A.J. Wilson, the board’s vice president, said during the June trial that he’d read the email and thought the idea of pursuing a test case was “kind of stupid” because “you should never go looking for a lawsuit.”

But that belief didn’t play into his vote to approve the Riverstone agreement, he said, “because that was kind of their prerogative, and if they wanted to pursue that, then it shouldn’t have affected the district at all.”

Riverstone’s opening led to a tumultuous year in the 12,000-student district, contributing to the sudden resignation of a board member, numerous tense public meetings, and the lawsuit against the school board.

Board president’s secret appointment violated Colorado law

Tuesday’s ruling said Susie Carnes’ selection to the Pueblo 70 board was a violation of Colorado’s open meetings law because the school board president, Ann Bennett, made the appointment over email without providing public notice.

“The appointment was done in secret: precisely the type of formal action the (Colorado Open Meetings Law) prohibits,” Chostner wrote.

Although the plaintiffs had argued that two February school board meetings around the time of Carnes’ appointment violated the open meetings law, the judge didn’t agree. She said both meetings were properly noticed.

Even so, Chostner found fault with Bennett’s decision at one meeting to break quorum and leave unannounced. That happened on Feb. 10, when the board deadlocked on picking a board member with repeated 2-2 ties. Then Wilson had a seizure and left the meeting. Bennett, who had sided with Wilson in the vacancy votes, never returned from the 10-minute recess she’d called or adjourned the meeting.

Chostner said there’s no evidence Bennett needed to end the meeting, because “the other board members were present and were ready to continue voting,” she wrote.

Six days after the unadjourned meeting, Bennett announced that she’d appointed Carnes to the vacant seat. Under Colorado law, school board presidents can appoint a new member if the board can’t agree on a candidate after 60 days.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado district will eliminate Bible-based content in new reading curriculum, officials say

2026-08-10T23:32:52+00:00

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A small southwestern Colorado school district will remove or modify any biblically infused content in its new elementary reading curriculum, a district official wrote in an open letter Saturday.

“Our schools will not use the curriculum as a vehicle for religious instruction,” wrote Eddie Ramirez, superintendent of the Montezuma-Cortez district, in a letter addressed to parents, elementary staff, and community members.

The announcement came two days after a Chalkbeat story about the district’s plan to use the Bluebonnet reading curriculum, which was developed by the state of Texas, aligns with Texas academic standards, and contains some lessons based on the Bible.

Also on Saturday, Montezuma-Cortez officials scheduled a special school board meeting for Tuesday to adopt the Bluebonnet curriculum. Although administrators announced in July the district would use the reading curriculum this year, the school board never voted on it.

Monday was the district’s first day of school.

Saturday’s four-page letter was an unusual effort to explain why the 2,200-student district adopted the Texas-centric curriculum and reassure parents and the public that reading instruction will match Colorado academic standards and avoid religious content.

This Colorado school district is using Biblically infused reading curriculum made for Texas students

Montezuma-Cortez administrators picked Bluebonnet because the district in May adopted a school improvement model borrowed from the Houston school district, which switched to Bluebonnet in June. The model, spearheaded by Houston Superintendent Mike Miles, a former charter school founder in Colorado, is called the New Education System.

Justin Schmitt, Montezuma-Cortez’s executive director of academic success, said in a phone interview Friday that using the same curriculum materials as Houston will help his district implement Houston’s improvement model.

“We don’t want to piecemeal the model,” he said. “We wanted to embrace the model in its entirety.”

The model is highly structured and includes teacher-led instruction, a focus on student engagement, and training for teachers and principals. Students in Houston schools using the New Education System made significant gains on state tests in the last few years.

In Montezuma-Cortez, two district-run elementary schools perform far below the Colorado average on state math and literacy tests. A third one, the 128-student Lewis-Arriola Elementary, performs far better.

The Bluebonnet curriculum has drawn criticism from advocates of church-state separation and some parents and religious scholars since it was unveiled in Texas two years ago. Among their critiques are that Bluebonnet mischaracterizes some Bible stories, presents some too literalistically, and gives scant attention to religious traditions outside of Christianity.

A kindergarten lesson discusses the days of Creation in the Book of Genesis, a first grade lesson contains the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and a two-lesson second grade sequence shares a Bible story about Queen Esther. A 14-lesson fifth grade unit discusses Biblical allegories in the “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis.

Schmitt said Houston repackages the Bluebonnet curriculum into slide decks and other materials that are ready for use in the classroom, which will take some of the load off Montezuma-Cortez teachers.

“We don’t have capacity in our district to build that,” he said of the specially tailored curriculum materials.

Schmitt said Montezuma-Cortez is paying for copying costs and some book purchases, but Houston isn’t charging the district to use the New Education System model or for the repackaged Bluebonnet curriculum.

Ramirez’s letter doesn’t mention the name Bluebonnet, but said the district “carefully reviewed” the new reading curricular resources and found “approximately 95% alignment with the applicable Colorado standards.”

Schmitt said Monday that Ramirez wasn’t referring to a district review of the curriculum, but rather an estimate by district officials that Texas and Colorado academic standards are about 95% the same.

Bluebonnet isn’t a Colorado-approved reading curriculum, but it was derived from a state-approved curriculum called Core Knowledge Language Arts. A spokesperson for the company that publishes Core Knowledge Language Arts said the two reading programs are different, and Core Knowledge’s state approval doesn’t guarantee Bluebonnet would win approval too. Colorado school districts don’t have to use state-approved reading curriculum, but they must ensure their curriculum meets state academic standards.

Ramirez wrote in the open letter, “Any content that is inconsistent with the district’s educational purpose, Colorado Academic Standards, or our expectations for a public-school instructional program will be reviewed and, where appropriate, removed or modified.”

Schmitt said the Houston team has provided Montezuma-Cortez with four weeks of reading curriculum materials so far and told district staff there are no faith-based teachings in that content.

“We’re going to trust that, but we’re also going to verify it on our own,” he said.

Teachers and principals will provide further checks to ensure religious content is removed, he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

This Colorado school district is using Biblically infused reading curriculum made for Texas students

2026-08-06T21:06:58+00:00

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Officials in Montezuma-Cortez, a small school district in southwestern Colorado, could have chosen a new elementary reading curriculum from more than 20 state-approved options.

Instead, with little public discussion this summer, they picked one called Bluebonnet. It’s described as being “built for Texas students” and has drawn fierce criticism from some Texans for containing Biblically infused lessons.

Kindergartners learn about the days of Creation in the Book of Genesis. First graders learn about the Parable of the Prodigal Son and fifth graders learn about Biblical allegories in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” by C.S. Lewis.

The curriculum adoption in Montezuma-Cortez is the latest chapter in an ongoing debate about what kind of religious content belongs in American public schools. It also raises questions about why a low-performing district is using a controversial reading curriculum that wasn’t vetted by state evaluators and didn’t go through a public review process or school board vote.

Montezuma-Cortez leaders picked Bluebonnet because the district recently adopted a school reform model from the Houston school district, which approved Bluebonnet this summer.

Houston Superintendent Mike Miles, a former Colorado charter school founder, created the school improvement model Montezuma-Cortez is using. Called “New Education System,” it emphasizes explicit teacher-led instruction, keeping students engaged, and training for teachers and principals. With the help of consultants, Montezuma-Cortez will use the reform strategy at its three elementary schools starting this fall.

Colorado is a local control state and school districts don’t have to use state-approved reading programs, but most do. A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said districts that don’t use state-approved curriculum must ensure the programs are evidence-based and meet state academic standards.

Superintendent Eddie Ramirez and six of seven Montezuma-Cortez school board members didn’t respond to requests for comment about Bluebonnet. Justin Schmitt, the district’s executive director of academic services, offered to talk by phone on Tuesday, but didn’t respond to follow-up emails to schedule the interview.

Board member Mike Lynch said by email Tuesday that the district is following Houston’s lead on curriculum because of that district’s “rapid and phenomenal turnaround history.”

“I want that outcome for my district,” he said.

Students in Houston schools that are part of the New Education System made significant gains on state tests in the last few years.

Lynch said he doesn’t know if Bluebonnet is evidence-based or how well it matches Colorado standards.

“In my opinion, we need to concentrate on teaching our kids how to read and do math,” he said. “Then we can worry more about matching the Colorado standards.”

Lynch also said he didn’t have enough information to form an opinion about Bluebonnet’s Biblically infused lessons.

“There is a difference between containing references from the Bible and teaching the Bible. There is also … number of occurrences, or degree of infusion,” he said. “I don’t know about those facts yet.”

Controversial from the beginning

The State of Texas developed Bluebonnet a few years ago by adapting an existing reading curriculum from the company Amplify. Despite criticism from religious scholars and advocates for church-state separation, Bluebonnet was narrowly approved by the Texas State Board of Education in 2024.

Texas districts aren’t required to adopt it, but they get financial incentives from the state if they do.

Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, said the problem with Bluebonnet is not that it includes religion but that its treatment of religion is not well done. It mischaracterizes some Bible stories, presents some too literalistically, and gives scant attention to religious traditions outside of Christianity, he said.

A second grade lesson on Esther, a Persian queen from the Bible, suggests she acted based on her faith in God and portrays her as a champion of non-violence for helping save the Jews. But Chancey said the Book of Esther famously doesn’t mention God and that Bluebonnet fails to mention that Esther promotes killing enemies of the Jews at the end of the Bible story.

Chancey said some Biblical content in Bluebonnet is not appropriate for the grade where it’s introduced.

“Is a 5-year-old going to say, ‘I’m so thankful that we’re learning about a creation story from Genesis for the sake of cultural literacy, but I understand that people interpret this differently, and not everybody accepts that it’s scientifically and historically accurate,’” he said.

“I don’t think many 5-year-olds are going to think that way,” he said.

Brent Strawn, a religion and law professor at Duke University, said knowing Bible stories and passages can give students a more nuanced understanding of everything from Shakespeare’s plays to pop music to common idioms, like “the apple of my eye.”

“You could make a case that reading the Bible, having some familiarity with the Bible, could help you as a kind of interpreter of cultural references,” said Strawn.

But he also worries that this rationale can be used to bring Biblical content into public schools when the real goal is to instill children with Christian values and beliefs.

“I’m … in favor of all Christian values. I’m an ordained minister,” he said, “But the question is whether that’s legal, and most people would say that’s not legal according to the establishment clause of the Constitution.”

That clause bars the government from promoting or prescribing one religion over others.

Strawn has not reviewed the Bluebonnet curriculum.

A sudden pivot, little public discussion

When officials in the 2,200-student Montezuma-Cortez district adopted Houston’s school improvement model last spring, the goal was to improve elementary students’ academic performance. One of three district-run elementary schools performs well above the state average on state literacy and math tests, but the other two perform far below.

District leaders originally planned to use a Colorado-approved reading curriculum as part of the improvement effort: Core Knowledge Language Arts. The school board approved a curriculum-use agreement with the Houston district in May that referenced that program.

But when Houston opted, despite opposition from some parents and faith leaders, to switch to Bluebonnet in June, Montezuma-Cortez officials quickly followed suit with no school board vote.

The two curriculums are related but not the same.

Bluebonnet was developed from Core Knowledge Language Arts as its foundation but has been adapted over time, said Kristine Frech-Barstow, senior vice president of corporate communications at Amplify, by email.

As a result, the curriculums are different and Colorado’s approval of Core Knowledge Language Arts doesn’t ensure Bluebonnet would also be approved, she said.

Ericka Burns, a consultant from the Colorado Springs-based firm Education Partners, said during a July 21 Montezuma-Cortez school board meeting that using the same curriculum as Houston makes it easier to use Houston’s school improvement model, but that it’s not necessary.

“We implement the instructional model regardless of curriculum,” she said.

Education Partners will receive $300,000 to help Montezuma-Cortez with the school improvement effort.

Bluebonnet materials include numerous mentions of Texas history and civics. For example, kindergarten lessons talk about the Texas flag, the Texas state capital building, the Texas Pledge of Allegiance, and famous Texans like Sam Houston.

In June, the Texas Education Agency announced it’s spending $8 million to fix thousands of errors in the curriculum, including typos, formatting problems, and copyright violations.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado officials knew ‘public Christian school’ was religious before it opened. They didn’t stop it.

2026-07-24T21:21:54+00:00

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When the leaders of a new elementary school applied for a four-digit public school code from the Colorado Department of Education last summer, they didn’t mention a key detail: The school would be religious.

Instead, they said Riverstone Academy would offer traditional academics and trade-themed electives. But education department officials soon learned that the 30-student school in Pueblo County would also be run by a Christian group and use some Christian curriculum.

Several department employees raised red flags internally and escalated the issue to state lawyers, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request. Still, Riverstone got its school code, and the department didn’t confront the school’s authorizer until months later, after the group’s director publicly announced that Riverstone was “Colorado’s first public Christian school.”

That’s when the department cited the Colorado constitution’s ban on teaching religious tenets in public schools and warned that Riverstone students might not be eligible for public funding. But that didn’t stop hundreds of thousands of dollars from flowing to the school last year.

A department spokesperson told Chalkbeat that the state legislature hasn’t given the department “any clear authority” to enforce the state constitution’s ban on religious public schools or the Establishment Clause in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. The clause prohibits the government from endorsing any religion.

“Compliance with the First Amendment has historically been enforced through the courts, not by state agencies,” Colorado Department of Education Chief External Relations Officer Emma Garrett-Nelson said in an email.

Riverstone’s story shows Colorado lacks any clear procedure to keep religious schools out of the public school ecosystem. The school closed permanently in May, but not because it was religious. Instead, state lawmakers imposed strict new limits on the group that authorized it.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

As conservative activists around the country chip away at church-state separation in education, that leaves a key question unanswered: Can Colorado stop a religious school from being recognized and funded as a public school?

Steven Green, a law professor at Willamette University who specializes in church-state issues, said that state officials could have and should have stopped Riverstone from opening. He disagreed with the idea that enforcing the state constitution is an issue for the courts and not state agencies.

“As a state official, however far down it is, they’re still bound by the Constitution,” he said. “It’s not that you wait till litigation occurs.”

Department staff raise questions about Riverstone

Chalkbeat reviewed scores of emails exchanged among more than two dozen Colorado Department of Education employees over two weeks last summer as they pondered whether to give Riverstone a public school code, which is required for data-tracking purposes.

Riverstone’s school code application arrived June 27, 2025. It was shared with more than a dozen members of a committee that reviews such requests.

On July 2, Jessica Tribbett, a data specialist for the department, emailed committee members that the Christian contractor that would run Riverstone, Forging Education, “operates a network of private school campuses committed to academic excellence and spiritual formation.”

Janyce Skalla, a senior policy consultant in the department’s schools of choice unit, replied, saying that Riverstone’s website mentioned faith-based science and social studies curriculums, Masterbooks and Berean Builders.

“The school claims to be public but has some private school elements that are worth flagging,” she wrote.

That afternoon Tribbett emailed four higher-level department employees. She wrote that an internet search revealed that Riverstone would offer “a faith-based education” and should be assigned a private school code instead of a public school one.

“Are there guidelines or legislation stating that faith-based curriculum cannot be used if accepting public funding?” Tribbett wrote.

One of the recipients, DJ Loerzel, executive director of data operations, emailed another group of department leaders the next morning.

“This is the first time we encountered a situation like this,” he wrote. “Are there specific statutes/policies noting public funds for schools that potentially have a religious curriculum?”

A lawyer meeting, then a decision

By the time the July 4 holiday weekend started, emails show employees from across the education department had been looped into the Riverstone conversation, including executive directors, managers, policy advisors, and an assistant commissioner.

The next step was a meeting with Joe Peters, an assistant state attorney general.

On July 8, after Tribbett and a few others met with Peters, Tribbett sent a brief email to seven higher-ups indicating a decision had been made.

Two days later, Riverstone got its code: 7294.

Ken Haptonstall, who heads the Colorado BOCES Association, a group for public education co-ops like the one that started Riverstone, said a school code provides a kind of legitimacy.

“To me, once you give a school code, it’s almost like you’re giving permission in a way,” he said.

It’s not clear from the public records what legal advice the assistant attorney general gave the education department. The department withheld some emails from Chalkbeat based on attorney-client privilege.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Attorney General’s office declined to answer questions about whether state law gives the education department the power to prevent a public religious school from opening.

Garrett-Nelson, the education department spokesperson, described the school code review committee’s job as an administrative process and said it wasn’t the place to “litigate this important issue.”

“Based on the current U.S. Supreme Court caselaw, the department likely would have lost a lawsuit challenging the denial of a school code solely based on the religious status” of Forging Education, Riverstone’s contractor, she wrote in an email.

A 2017 U.S. Supreme Court ruling said government benefits can’t be withheld from an organization solely because of its religious status.

But department employees knew more than Forging Education’s religious affiliation. They knew the school planned to teach students using two different Christian curriculums.

Asked why that didn’t allow the department to take action, Garrett-Nelson said, “We were working closely with our legal counsel as more information was coming to light. Due to the high-stakes nature of litigation in this area, we wanted to ensure we were on stable ground before actively questioning the use of public funds on religious instruction.”

Green, the Willamette law professor, likened the approach to an ostrich putting its head in the sand, particularly because conservative legal groups have consistently pushed for publicly funded religious education in recent years.

“For any knowledgeable assistant attorney general to think, oh, if we give them just a little bit, or maybe it won’t manifest itself in the way we think it will … or maybe it will just go away, that’s pie in the sky.”

A delayed confrontation

State education leaders confronted Riverstone’s authorizer — Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES — in October, three months after the school code decision and two months after Riverstone opened.

These co-ops are meant to support school districts. This one started Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school.’

They’d already begun getting questions as word of the school spread, emails obtained through a public records request show. In early October, Scott Smith, the chief financial and operating officer for the Cherry Creek School District, sent screenshots of Riverstone’s website to two top department officials and said, “I’m wondering how this school can qualify for public funds?”

The department addressed the issue directly on Oct. 10 — the day after Ken Witt, the executive director of ERBOCES, called Riverstone “Colorado’s first public Christian school.”

Jennifer Okes, district operations special advisor, wrote to Witt, saying the department “recently became aware” of the school’s opening. She said that public schools are generally required to be nonsectarian — meaning non-religious — and that Riverstone students might not be eligible for public funding.

In the weeks following Witt’s headline-making announcement, department officials didn’t acknowledge they’d known that Riverstone would be a religious school from the start and that its school code had sparked a dayslong debate.

When Chalkbeat asked in late October whether a school that was clearly religious would be given a school code, department spokesperson Jeremy Meyer said by email, “If that hypothetical event were to occur, we would consult with our legal counsel on the appropriate course of action.”

A threat, but no action

Department officials never cracked down on Riverstone.

In January, they selected ERBOCES for a state audit, a lengthy process the department’s earlier letter had implied might provide them ammunition for withholding Riverstone’s funding.

But in February — the same day Riverstone and ERBOCES filed a religious liberty lawsuit against the state — department officials sent a letter to Witt saying the department’s audit wouldn’t consider religion.

Garrett-Nelson said the department changed course because religion wasn’t mentioned in its audit guide, which is a set of instructions for school districts. Officials “decided not to rely on this untested approach to claw back funding” because it would have “led straight back into the heart of the litigation risk,” she said.

Today, Riverstone is closed for good, the religious liberty lawsuit is dead, and ERBOCES no longer has the power to hand over school operations to a contractor. But it remains unclear if the education department can or will stop a religious public school, either through bureaucratic steps on the front end or the power of the purse on the back end.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

State scrutinizes homeschool enrichment proposals from controversial education group

2026-07-10T23:22:29+00:00

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Responding to recent changes in state law, Colorado officials are scrutinizing 42 homeschool enrichment program applications submitted by a controversial education group whose past practices spurred the changes.

The Colorado Department of Education on Thursday sent a four-page letter to the group — Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES — requesting additional details so a six-member review team can determine if the enrichment programs comply with the new rules.

The department’s letter provides a glimpse into the state’s new harder line on publicly funded programming for home-school students. It also illustrates ERBOCES’ effort to maintain its stable of enrichment programs around Colorado in the face of state efforts to crack down on the group.

Homeschool enrichment programs typically offer six hours of class a week and are meant to give home-schooled students socialization opportunities or access to courses that are hard to offer at home.

The state’s tougher stance on homeschool enrichment comes after lawmakers passed strict limits this spring, aiming to curb rapid growth fueled by ERBOCES, increase transparency, and bar certain kinds of offerings, such as ski passes, karate lessons, and sports camps. Last year, the state spent around $100 million on homeschool enrichment programs.

The law change requires homeschool enrichment authorizers like ERBOCES to get approval from the state or a local school district if they want to continue operating an enrichment program outside their boundaries. As of Thursday, the education department had received 45 applications for out-of-boundary enrichment programs, according to a department spokesperson.

Forty-two of the applications came from ERBOCES for programs operating outside the group’s only member school district, District 49 in northeast Colorado Springs. One application came from the Aurora school district and two came from charter schools: Ascent Classical Academy of Northern Denver and Colorado Military Academy in Colorado Springs.

ERBOCES does not have to get state or school district approval for homeschool enrichment programs operating within District 49.

Ken Witt, executive director of ERBOCES, said by email on Friday that the education department’s review of his group’s 42 applications “encompasses a significant number of our wildly popular programs.”

He said the review will require some back and forth with the department, and he expects it to be completed in the next few weeks.

During the 2025-26 school year, ERBOCES had more than 50 homeschool enrichment programs around the state. Some offered math, reading, and electives like music and physical education. Others had a specific focus: outdoor adventure, career training, aviation, golf, or horsemanship.

Witt has declined to provide Chalkbeat a full list of its homeschool enrichment programs, some of which have dozens of sub-campuses and subcontractors.

In Thursday’s letter, education department officials warned ERBOCES that its 42 applications were incomplete and would need to be resubmitted.

Items missing include:

Information on whether homeschool enrichment applicants are located on private school campuses. Such co-locations are no longer permitted.
Information on whether homeschool enrichment applicants are located at the same place as private fee-based programs. Such co-locations may not be permitted because the new rules bar the state from subsidizing private activities or purchases for home-schoolers.
A full list of sub-campuses or subprograms operated by a single applicant.

In the letter, education department officials cited specific problems with some applications. For example, it noted that Enrich Colorado, a homeschool enrichment program based in Pueblo, had not included information on a contractor operating in 28 locations around the state. That contractor is Forging Education, a group that operated a now defunct “public Christian school” that created a storm of controversy last school year.

The letter also cites discrepancies in application paperwork for a program called Colorado Homeschool Enrichment, with one form saying the group has 68 campuses across Colorado and another form saying the number is 75.

In June, ERBOCES provided a partial list of Colorado Homeschool Enrichment campuses to Chalkbeat. Most of the 30 items on the list simply say “Micro-Campus” with an individual’s name next to the entry. Others have names like St. Stephen Catholic School, Global Ex Academy, and Adventure Learning.

Several homeschool enrichment programs that last year operated under the ERBOCES umbrella have discontinued their offerings in Colorado, according to their websites. They include programs such as Front Range Construction Academy, Alpine International Prep Academy, and Colorado Agribusiness and Equine Sciences Academy.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Here’s what happened to 3 Colorado schools when state lawmakers reined in a controversial education group

2026-07-02T20:12:17+00:00

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A recent law change aimed at what some Colorado lawmakers saw as a rogue school authorizing group quickly changed the trajectory of three public schools this spring.

One closed, one will stay open, and the fate of the third is a mystery.

The new law put strict limits on the school-authorizing power of Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES. It passed quickly in the last days of this spring’s legislative session, a sign of the urgency lawmakers felt in their bid to rein in one particular BOCES: Education reEnvisioned.

The Monument-based group, often called ERBOCES, started a controversial “public Christian school” last August and fueled explosive growth in homeschool enrichment programs that cost the state tens of millions of dollars.

The law forced ERBOCES’ three brick-and-mortar schools to find a new path forward or shut down.

Riverstone Academy, the public Christian school, closed at the end of the school year. It had about 30 elementary students.

Ascend College Prep became a charter school after winning authorization last month from the Charter School Institute, a statewide charter authorizer. Last year, the Colorado Springs school served 116 students in grades 10 through 12.

After a year of controversy, the leader of a shuttered ‘public Christian school’ is pitching a new venture

It’s not clear what will happen to the third school, the 260-student Pueblo Classical Academy. School leaders were unsuccessful in their recent effort to become a charter school authorized by Pueblo School District 60. They haven’t responded to questions about whether the school will close or obtain a new arrangement that will allow it to stay open.

The new law bars BOCES from authorizing schools outside their member school districts and from having brick-and-mortar schools entirely run by contractors. Since Riverstone, Ascend, and Pueblo Classical were outside ERBOCES’ member school districts and run by contractors, they didn’t meet the new law’s requirements.

Riverstone’s leader, Quin Friberg, didn’t respond to a request for comment about why he didn’t seek a new authorizer for the school.

Riverstone had been forced out of its original building midway through the school year because of safety concerns and hadn’t completed the required improvements to move back in.

After the law change, Ascend officials rushed to convert it to a charter school under the umbrella of the Charter School Institute, a move that also required approval from Academy District 20, where the school is located. Both tasks had to be finished in about six weeks.

Ascend Principal Karin McWhorter said her team was blindsided by the abrupt law change.

“Ascend has done everything right for five years,” she said. “We keep meticulous records, we have a 100% graduation rate, we follow every single law and regulation to the letter, and so … my initial thought was, it felt very unfair.”

McWhorter said becoming a charter school will also bring benefits, including access to certain kinds of capital project funding for schools.

McWhorter opened Ascend in 2021 after teaching at the Air Force Academy and finding that some students arrived unprepared for college-level work. She started the school with high school juniors and seniors, then added sophomores in its third year so there would be enough students to receive a state rating. The school, housed in leased office space, caps classes at 16 students and enrollment at 125.

Pueblo Classical Academy has recently posted school supply lists and enrollment forms for the 2026-27 year, but it’s not clear how the school will open without a new authorizer.

Pueblo Classical has a history of switching authorizers. It opened in 2021 with ERBOCES as its authorizer. In 2022, it became a charter school authorized by District 70. But in 2024, the district revoked its charter because of financial breaches and its failure to report an employee’s arrest, among other concerns. At that point, the school returned to ERBOCES.

Spokespeople for Pueblo County District 70, where the school is located, and the Charter School Institute said Pueblo Classical had not applied to them for authorization. Ken Witt, ERBOCES’ executive director, said by email Wednesday he doesn’t know if Pueblo Classical has found a new authorizer.

Dave Martin, the head of the three-school network that includes Pueblo Classical, didn’t respond to repeated email and phone messages asking about the school’s plans for the coming year.

Martin did speak to Chalkbeat just before the June 23 vote by the Pueblo 60 school board on whether to authorize Pueblo Classical as a charter school.

He expressed frustration over the sudden law change, saying his students were getting caught in the political crossfire.

“Shame on those folks who swing to the right, and shame on those folks who swing to the left, because at the end of the day, not one of those 260 families that we serve had anything to do with either side,” he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Another defection hits group that launched ‘Colorado’s first public Christian school’

2026-06-24T22:55:51+00:00

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A controversial public education co-op that spearheaded a “public Christian school” in southern Colorado last year will lose a member in August, putting its existence in jeopardy for the second time this summer.

Pikes Peak State College will withdraw from the co-op — Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services or ERBOCES — effective Aug. 15, Matt Radcliffe, a spokesperson for the college, said by email on Tuesday.

“We do not have anything further to add,” he wrote.

The Elizabeth School District withdrew from ERBOCES in early June. The only other school district member — District 49 in El Paso County — also considered dropping out this month but ultimately opted not to.

Colorado group that started controversial ‘public Christian school’ loses member support

State law requires co-ops like ERBOCES to have at least two members, either two school districts or a school district and a college. Once Pikes Peak State College leaves the co-op, ERBOCES would need another member to keep operating in accordance with the law.

ERBOCES has been at the center of two major controversies over the past year, and both its members and state lawmakers have taken notice. Last summer, the co-op authorized Riverstone Academy, a tiny school in Pueblo County that emails show was created at the behest of a conservative law firm that wanted to spark a religious liberty lawsuit that would go to the U.S. Supreme Court. ERBOCES has also fueled massive growth in publicly funded home-school enrichment programs across the state, using private contractors and subcontractors that keep many details hidden from the public.

In May, Colorado lawmakers sharply curtailed the power of such co-ops to operate schools or programs outside their member districts. The changes prompted the permanent closure of Riverstone and could lead to the closure of other schools and some home-school enrichment programs authorized by ERBOCES.

Asked how ERBOCES will continue operating once Pikes Peak drops out, Ken Witt, the group’s executive director, was vague.

“We routinely welcome new members, just as we understand when political and administrative changes lead to affiliation changes,” he said by email Wednesday. “We will continue to do all in our power to ensure parents have access to the programs and schools they want for their children.”

ERBOCES authorizes several schools, most of them online schools. It also has dozens of home-school enrichment programs, which typically provide six hours a week of tuition-free classes or activities.

When the District 49 school board, which is ERBOCES’ fiscal agent, discussed whether to drop out of the co-op in early June, board members were divided. Some, like Mike Heil, who drafted a presentation highlighting his concerns, questioned the “reputational impact” of District 49 being associated with the co-op.

Board member Lori Thompson, who recently joined the ERBOCES board, said Heil’s presentation told an incomplete story.

School Board President Marie LaVere-Wright, who used to be a member of the ERBOCES board, urged the District 49 board to stick with the co-op for another year at a minimum.

“If we leave, because their funding flows through us, too, that creates a structural problem for them,” she said. “And you have a whole set of families that are depending on this who would immediately lose something.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado group that started controversial ‘public Christian school’ faces member defections

2026-06-10T18:22:03+00:00

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A public education co-op that launched a controversial ‘public Christian school’ in southern Colorado last year is losing support among its members.

One of the group’s two member school districts, Elizabeth School District, withdrew from the co-op Tuesday. The second one, District 49, is expected to decide whether to withdraw later in June. If it does, Pikes Peak State College would be the only member.

State law requires such co-ops to have at least one school district member. If District 49’s school board decides to exit, the co-op could recruit one or more districts to replace it. But failing that, it’s not clear how the group would survive with only the college as a member.

The membership churn for Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES, signals an uncertain future for the co-op as well as its eight schools and dozens of publicly funded homeschool enrichment programs. The upheaval also suggests ERBOCES has lost the faith of key education officials whose districts enable it to exist.

The defection of member school districts isn’t the only problem facing the Monument-based ERBOCES. In May, Colorado lawmakers sharply curtailed the power of such co-ops to operate schools or programs outside their member districts. The changes prompted the permanent closure of Riverstone Academy, the public Christian school, and could lead to the closure of other schools and some homeschool enrichment programs authorized by ERBOCES.

In late push, Colorado lawmakers seek limits on homeschool enrichment and group fueling its growth

Ken Witt, executive director of ERBOCES, said by email that districts choose to join and leave the co-op occasionally, often in conjunction with district leadership or school board changes.

“We understand when political and administrative changes lead to affiliation changes,” he said.

ERBOCES is one of 21 such co-ops in Colorado. The groups were formed to make it easier for school districts to band together and offer services like special education they couldn’t afford to provide on their own. But ERBOCES has drawn scrutiny and irritation from some state and local education officials because it acts more like a statewide school authorizer.

The Elizabeth district’s decision to leave ERBOCES — formalized by a 4-0 school board vote Tuesday — is surprising given the district joined the group just four months ago. But the 2,700-student district southeast of Denver is going through big changes. Superintendent Dan Snowberger, who’d previously worked for ERBOCES, retired from the district this month, a year earlier than he’d planned.

Ted Knight, Elizabeth’s new superintendent, said in an emailed statement that he recommended the board drop out of ERBOCES.

He said the co-op provides offerings that “may be a good fit for some districts,” including homeschool enrichment programs and contract school models, but that “Elizabeth is well-positioned with its existing portfolio of schools.”

At Tuesday’s school board meeting, Board President Rhonda Olsen said the withdrawal was because membership in the co-op was not providing sufficient benefit, and it’s ”time for a fresh start and a new approach.” She said the move was not because of social media commentary, political pressure, or outside influence.

Both Knight and the school board acknowledged Tuesday the district is facing financial problems. It’s also embroiled in at least two lawsuits — one over 19 books removed from school libraries and one alleging a middle school dean was wrongfully fired for objecting to the book removals.

The board also voted unanimously Tuesday to cut ties with its law firm, Miller Farmer Carlson Law. The firm is led by Brad Miller, who also represents ERBOCES and helped start Riverstone Academy at the request of a conservative law firm that sought a Supreme Court test case on the question of public funding for religious education. Another former ERBOCES member, the Montezuma-Cortez district in southwestern Colorado, also recently dropped Miller’s firm.

District 49’s school board will discuss its membership in ERBOCES Thursday and vote on staying or withdrawing later in June. If the district drops out, it would represent a big — possibly catastrophic — hit for ERBOCES. The 26,000-student district is a founding member of the co-op and its fiscal agent.

Some District 49 board members have become increasingly skeptical of ERBOCES.

In a presentation he drafted for Thursday’s board meeting, school board member Mike Heil highlighted a series of recent controversies entangling ERBOCES and questioned the “reputational impact” of District 49 being associated with the co-op.

He suggested ERBOCES is an “irresponsible authorizer,” in part because it approved Riverstone Academy even though school officials skipped routine steps when they opened the school and within months were ordered to vacate their building over health and safety problems.

The presentation also notes a problem that state lawyers recently cited: Some of ERBOCES’ board members are ineligible to serve on the board. A court document filed by the state in a lawsuit brought by Riverstone and ERBOCES argued that decisions made by the co-op’s improperly constituted board are void.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ closes permanently

2026-06-02T18:10:24+00:00

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A controversial “public Christian school” in southern Colorado has closed permanently after changes in Colorado law cut off state funding, its executive director wrote in a legal filing.

Backers opened the 30-student Riverstone Academy in Pueblo County nine months ago with hopes of sparking a religious liberty lawsuit that would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Instead, the school faced setbacks — including safety problems that forced it to move and a $20,000 settlement with the parents of a young student — and the legal effort fizzled.

Citing the new provisions in state law, Riverstone Executive Director Quin Friberg wrote in a legal document that the school’s efforts “will be directed to winding up its operations and shutting down” after the last day of school last week.

The filing signed by Friberg on Thursday is part of a lawsuit brought by three school board candidates against the Pueblo 70 school board alleging open meetings violations related to Riverstone’s launch.

Another lawsuit — the one backers hoped would go to the Supreme Court — came in February when Riverstone and its authorizer sued the state for religious discrimination, citing the possibility that the state could eventually claw back the school’s public funding.

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat show the school was created at the behest of a conservative law firm to spark such a lawsuit after the Supreme Court deadlocked on a similar case out of Oklahoma last spring. The firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, asked an education lawyer named Brad Miller if he could “find a way for a parallel case to be initiated out of Colorado.”

The case was short-lived. The school and its authorizer, a public education co-op based in Monument, dropped the lawsuit in May.

The death knell for Riverstone was a pair of amendments lawmakers passed in the last few days of this spring’s legislative session. One bars co-ops like the one that authorized Riverstone from starting schools or programs outside their member school districts. The other bars school districts or co-ops from having brick and mortar schools that are entirely run by contractors.

The new limits effectively put Riverstone’s authorizer — Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services or ERBOCES — at odds with state law, making Riverstone ineligible for state funding. That’s because Riverstone is located outside of ERBOCES’ two member school districts and is run by a contractor.

Riverstone opened quietly last summer in a former office in an industrial area in Pueblo County. It described itself as a public elementary school that offered a Christian foundation, but its religious affiliation wasn’t widely known until October. That’s when Ken Witt, the executive director of ERBOCES, announced at a public meeting that Riverstone was Colorado’s first public Christian school, surprising members of the public and some government officials.

The fallout included the abrupt resignation in December of Pueblo 70 school board member Anne Ochs after a district parent criticized her for her role in bringing Riverstone into the district and for failing to disclose a conflict of interest.

Friberg and Witt did not respond to requests for comment about Riverstone’s closure.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ drops religious discrimination lawsuit against state

2026-05-26T21:26:07+00:00

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A southern Colorado elementary school that backers have called “Colorado’s first public Christian school” has dropped its religious discrimination lawsuit against the state less than four months after filing it.

Riverstone Academy, along with its authorizer, a public education co-op that’s also a plaintiff in the case, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit Friday. The case was terminated by a federal district court Monday.

Michael Francisco, a lawyer representing the co-op, said by email Monday that changes to state law made the case moot. Earlier this month, Colorado lawmakers put limits on how and where public education co-ops can run schools. Riverstone no longer fits within those parameters, which means the school could be forced to close.

The lawsuit termination marks the end of what the school’s backers originally hoped would be a high profile case that could eventually be heard by the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court and pave the way for religious schools in the public education system. Similar legal efforts continue to unfold in other states, including one involving a proposed Jewish charter school in Oklahoma.

Riverstone received state funding this year, but the Colorado Department of Education warned last fall that the school might not be eligible for public education funding because of its religious nature. The department is currently conducting an audit of Riverstone’s authorizer — Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES — and could eventually claw back funding given to Riverstone.

The school argued in its lawsuit that the possible clawback violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause by forcing Riverstone to choose between exercising its religious beliefs and continuing as a publicly funded school.

The lawsuit’s end comes after a tumultuous year for Riverstone, which bills itself as a public elementary school that offers a Christian foundation.The 30-student school opened quietly last August in an industrial area of Pueblo County. It burst into public view two months later when the leader of the group that authorized the school described it as “Colorado’s first public Christian school” at an October school board meeting.

Soon after, county officials cited the school for numerous health and safety violations after learning that school officials had skipped routine steps when opening the building. By late January, the county ordered the school to vacate its building and Riverstone officials complied, moving students to a local church. Two weeks later, in mid-February, Riverstone and ERBOCES sued the state.

State officials responded to the lawsuit by saying it was filed prematurely and that the plaintiffs face no “imminent harm.” They said the state won’t make a final decision about recovering the money until they finish the audit of ERBOCES in 2027.

These co-ops are meant to support school districts. This one started Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school.’

The state also argued that Riverstone Academy doesn’t have a valid contract with ERBOCES — and therefore no standing to sue — because the five-member ERBOCES board was not properly constituted when it approved the Riverstone contract last summer. Under state law, such co-op boards are required to have board members or administrators from each BOCES member institution. But last summer, ERBOCES had only one board member from one of its three member institutions.

The ongoing controversy over Riverstone, along with the explosion of homeschool enrichment programs authorized by ERBOCES, spurred lawmakers to put new guardrails on such co-ops in the last days of the legislative session this month. They allow the co-ops to authorize schools and programs only in their member school districts and clarify that school districts and BOCES can’t authorize brick and mortar schools that are entirely run by contractors.

The new limits will effectively put ERBOCES at odds with state law. That’s because Riverstone is located outside of ERBOCES’ two member school districts and is run by a contractor.

Quin Friberg, the executive director of Riverstone Academy and its contractor, Forging Education, did not respond to questions about whether the school will close. The school’s website appears to have been taken down, but its Facebook page is still up.

When asked if Riverstone will be forced to close this summer, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Education said by email Monday that officials are reviewing the implementation and implications of the state law changes.

At least one lawsuit revolving around Riverstone is ongoing. That one, filed in Pueblo County District Court by three school board candidates in March, alleges a pattern of open meetings violations that started last summer when the Pueblo 70 school board voted to allow Riverstone to open within district boundaries.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

U.S. Supreme Court to take Colorado case about public funding for Catholic preschools that bar LGBTQ families

2026-04-20T17:43:06+00:00

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The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Colorado case alleging religious discrimination against two Catholic preschools that wanted to participate in the state’s universal preschool program but didn’t want to have to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.

The court announced the decision Monday morning and will likely hold oral arguments in the fall. The Trump administration has weighed in on the side of the Catholic preschools.

The question at the heart of the case asks if private religious schools that accept public education dollars can refuse to enroll students based on religious principles. The state and two lower courts have said no. The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, could give a different answer.

The Catholic preschools sued the state in 2023 as Colorado launched its new universal preschool program, which provides tuition-free preschool to 4-year-olds statewide. The $349 million program serves more than 40,000 children and allows families to choose from public, private, or religious preschools.

St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and Wellspring Catholic Academy in Lakewood wanted to join the program when it started, but didn’t want to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families. They said admitting such children would conflict with Catholic beliefs on sex and gender.

The preschools asked for an exemption from state non-discrimination rules, but the Colorado Department of Early Childhood refused. The two preschools never joined the program, and the case went to court.

In September, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a key part of a lower court decision, handing Colorado a major win and the two Catholic preschools a defeat. In its ruling, the court wrote that it found no proof that the Colorado Department of Early Childhood took actions that “evidence religious hostility,” as the two Catholic preschools claimed.

The state’s universal preschool program “went to great effort to be welcoming and inclusive of faith-based preschools’ participation,” the decision said.

Of more than 2,000 preschools participating in Colorado’s universal preschool program this year, about 40 are religious.

Attorneys from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic preschools in the case, argue that Colorado’s universal preschool program excludes the preschools based on their religious beliefs.

It cites a major 2022 Supreme Court decision, Carson v. Makin, that said states can’t prevent religious schools from accessing public dollars because they are religious. Becket argues that courts have circumvented that decision, including in the Catholic preschool case, by applying it only when governments specifically target religious groups with their rules.

The Carson decision should also apply when government rules affect free exercise of religion, the suit says. It says courts have worked around the Carson decision by citing a 1990 Supreme Court decision over whether Oregon could deny unemployment benefits to someone who used peyote in a religious ceremony.

That decision held that the Constitution’s Free Exercise clause doesn’t exempt people from obeying neutral, generally applicable laws even if those laws burden religious practices.

The preschool program’s non-discrimination rules apply to all preschools, not just the Catholic ones. The rules bar discrimination based on various characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity.

Wellspring, one of two parish preschools involved in the case, closed last year along with Wellspring’s K-8 school because of low enrollment and financial problems.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

In wake of ‘public Christian school’ controversy, Pueblo 70 school board sued over open meetings violations

2026-03-31T22:58:31+00:00

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Three school board candidates who were passed over for a vacant seat on the Pueblo District 70 school board sued the board Monday, asking the court to order a new vote to fill the seat.

They also asked the court to declare that the Pueblo 70 school board violated Colorado’s open meetings law several times over the last seven months, including by not clearly describing agenda items related to Riverstone Academy, an elementary school that backers have called Colorado’s “first public Christian school.”

The lawsuit is the third one this year related to Riverstone. The lawsuit alleges a pattern of violations that started last summer when the school board voted to allow Riverstone to open within district boundaries and continued with the controversial appointment of a fourth candidate to the school board in February.

Monday’s lawsuit was filed in Pueblo County District Court by attorney Eric Maxfield on behalf of Jonathan Lewis, Tara Stroesenreuther, and Adolph Vigil, three of four candidates who vied for an open seat on the school board over the winter. The school board president appointed the fourth candidate, Susie Carnes, to fill the seat in February. At the heart of the latest lawsuit is the idea that the public’s business must be conducted in public.

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat show that Riverstone was created at the behest of a conservative law firm seeking a test case on the question of public funding for religious schools. Attorney Brad Miller, whose law firm represents Pueblo 70, outlined that goal in an email to the five-member board and superintendent last June. The school board president at the time, Anne Ochs, wrote back within minutes, and the topic was added to the next meeting agenda.

Monday’s lawsuit alleges that the school board hid Miller’s plan from the public at two June meetings by using generic, jargon-laden language to describe the Riverstone matter. This failed “to provide full notice regarding the proposed Board approval of a publicly-funded Christian school within D70, created for the purpose of manufacturing a Supreme Court test case in hopes of striking down Colorado’s ban against using public funds for religious education,” the lawsuit says.

Reached by email on Tuesday, Miller did not comment about the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also alleges that placing the Riverstone vote on the board’s consent agenda on June 24 was a violation of open meetings law. Consent agendas allow public bodies like school boards to group routine, uncontroversial issues together for a vote with no debate. Board members can request that items be removed from the consent agenda and voted on separately. That didn’t happen with Riverstone.

Voting on Riverstone as part of the larger consent agenda constituted an “unlawful rubberstamp of a prior, non-public decision,” the lawsuit says.

Riverstone Academy originally operated in this building, but moved temporarily to Christ Church Pueblo West in February.

The lawsuit says that the Pueblo 70 school board continued to violate open meetings law over the winter. That was after three new members were elected in November and after Ochs resigned in December, when a district parent criticized her for hiding key facts about Riverstone’s creation and failing to disclose a conflict of interest.

According to the lawsuit, School Board President Ann Bennett, one of the board members elected in November, violated the law by abruptly leaving a meeting on Feb. 10, the date the board was supposed to select a new member to replace Ochs.

Before Bennett left, the board had deadlocked on picking a new member with repeated 2-2 ties. Then board Vice President AJ Wilson fell ill and was helped out of the room. That left three board members and the possibility that a candidate Bennett didn’t support — Lewis, Stroesenreuther, or Vigil — could be appointed in a 2-1 vote.

“Faced with losing the vote, in a ‘personal power move’ that broke her pledges to follow state law and to respect the Board, Bennett illegally fled the un-adjourned meeting to break quorum and prevent a vote,” a motion accompanying the lawsuit states.

Quorum refers to the minimum number of members needed for a public body to take votes on public business.

This education co-op quietly opened a Christian public school. Does Colorado need more guardrails?

Several days after the Feb. 10 meeting, Bennett announced in a letter to the community that she’d appointed Carnes the vacant seat. Under Colorado law, school board presidents can appoint a new member if the board can’t agree on a candidate after 60 days.

The lawsuit alleges that the “non-public and unilateral appointment of Carnes” and her swearing in during an “un-noticed” meeting on Feb. 25 violated the open meetings law.

In a motion for a preliminary injunction filed along with the lawsuit, the plaintiffs ask the court to order the three Pueblo 70 school board members who were present when Wilson became ill to resume the Feb. 10 meeting that was never adjourned and vote in a candidate to fill the vacancy. That motion also asks that Carnes be ordered to cease serving as a board member while that process plays out.

The lawsuit also wants the Pueblo 70 board to pay the three plaintiffs’ legal fees.

District Superintendent Ronda Rein said by email that the lawsuit could divert funds from student programming

“The board acts on the guidance of their attorney, and any legal proceedings would require the district to cover attorney fees,” she said. “There are more constructive ways to hold the board accountable than through a lawsuit.”

While Miller’s law firm continues to represent Pueblo 70 school board, the district could soon be represented by a different firm. Rein, who will retire at the end of June, recently put out a request for proposals for attorneys to represent the district. Rein said four firms responded, including Miller’s.

Riverstone is still in the midst of another lawsuit. In February, the school and its authorizer filed a religious discrimination lawsuit against the state over the possibility that the school’s public funding could eventually be clawed back.

Forging Education, the Christian nonprofit group that operates Riverstone, also filed a lawsuit against Pueblo County in January, after county officials ordered the school to close its building over safety concerns. School officials voluntarily closed the building and moved the school to a temporary location shortly after.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

In a win for controversial ‘public Christian school,’ Pueblo County officials greenlight original site

2026-03-13T00:34:00+00:00

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A controversial “public Christian school” in southern Colorado will eventually be allowed to occupy the property it was forced to vacate for safety reasons in January after a key decision by the Pueblo County Board of Commissioners Thursday morning.

After some tense exchanges, the board voted 2-1 to grant a special use permit that will allow Riverstone Academy to return to its original location in a light industrial area near concrete, landscaping, and machine shop businesses. The approval ran contrary to a February vote by the county planning commission recommending the permit be denied over safety concerns.

Thursday’s decision represents a victory for Riverstone, but the elementary school won’t be able to return to its original site right away. School officials will be required to make building and property improvements and then get approval from local officials. It’s not clear how long that will take.

Riverstone, which advertises itself as a public school that offers a “Christian foundation,” has generated controversy for months. School founders didn’t follow routine steps to ensure the school’s building met health and safety standards before opening to about 30 students last August. By January, local officials ordered Riverstone officials to close its building, and after initially fighting the effort, school leaders agreed.

In addition, emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate Riverstone was created to spark a lawsuit over public funding for religious schools that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The school, which is currently receiving state funding, sued the state in February, alleging it would be religious discrimination if the state eventually decides to claw back the funding.

While school officials have refused in the last six weeks to divulge Riverstone’s temporary location, it appears to be operating out of Christ Church Pueblo West, about 13 miles away from its original location. On a recent sunny afternoon at the school’s advertised dismissal time, a string of parents emerged from the church’s front door, trailed by children carrying backpacks. Some parents stopped to chat with each other in the parking lot, while others went straight to their cars.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, when Commissioner Miles Lucero, a Democrat, asked Riverstone Executive Director Quin Friberg, where the school is currently operating, Friberg confirmed that it’s in a church but wouldn’t say which one.

“I think it’s a safety concern,” said Friberg. “There is so much public attention on this right now.”

But he also acknowledged that the location is something of an open secret, saying, “Multiple media [members] know where the building is. It’s not that private at this point.”

Lucero, who was the one commissioner to vote against the special use permit, said his interest in knowing the temporary location is related to safety. It’s unclear if Christ Church Pueblo West meets health and safety standards required for elementary schools.

Friberg told Lucero he would call him and share the school’s location.

Among the issues discussed at Thursday’s special use permit hearing were the traffic volume in front of Riverstone’s original building, whether parents have the expertise needed to determine school site safety, and why Riverstone leaders sometimes call the school public and other times private.

Some members of the planning commission raised concerns in February that a child could get run over by a cement truck or other kinds of heavy machinery that travel the road.

Chairman Zach Swearingen and Commissioner Paula McPheeters, both Republicans who both voted in favor of the permit, said traffic at the original site is relatively light and doesn’t pose a risk to children.

“I sat there myself to observe it,” said McPheeters, who recently visited the Aspen Circle location. ”And as a parent of children, watching the traffic … I couldn’t, in my own experience, see why it wouldn’t be acceptable.”

The father of a Riverstone student who spoke Thursday said he felt his child is in a safe environment. But others who spoke in opposition felt the planning commission’s denial recommendation held more weight.

One public commenter, Andrea Naglich, who is part of a local school board watchdog group called #WeAreD70, suggested that McPheeters had a conflict of interest in voting on the Riverstone permit.

“There is a documented relationship between Commissioner McPheeters and the leadership connected to Riverstone Academy and related organizations,” including Friberg, she said.

McPheeters and Friberg helped found Forging Pueblo, a group that aims to “Impact Pueblo with a biblical worldview.” McPheeters served on the group’s board until 2023. Forging Education, the Christian group that operates Riverstone Academy, is an offshoot of Forging Pueblo.

McPheeters said she has remained “completely neutral” on the topic of Riverstone.

“And yet, there are those in the community accusing me of a conflict of interest because of my affiliations, because I might go to church with someone, or have worked [on] a project [with] someone.”

She suggested that Lucero had compromised himself by recently attending a Pueblo 70 school board meeting and asking the board to end the agreement that allows Riverstone to be located within district boundaries.

Lucero said he did that because of Riverstone’s refusal to explain where the school was located following the closure of its original building.

“The reason is … because to this day, Riverstone Academy has been unwilling to tell us where these children are,” he said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Lawyer warns of possible lawsuit over alleged open meetings violations in Pueblo 70 school district

2026-03-12T01:09:39+00:00

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Four school board candidates, one vacant seat, and a school board president who made the pick on her own.

These are the main ingredients of a legal conflict brewing in the Pueblo 70 school district, where a divided board has faced months of simmering tension over the district’s role in the opening of a “public Christian school” called Riverstone Academy.

There’s no lawsuit yet. But a lawyer representing the three school board candidates who were passed over for the vacant seat has suggested it’s possible. Board President Ann Bennett appointed Susie Carnes, who has links to the group that operates Riverstone, to the open seat in February.

In a Tuesday email, attorney Eric Maxfield told Pueblo 70’s lawyer that his clients’ next steps could include “litigation in state district court” over violations of Colorado’s open meetings law. His clients are Jonathan Lewis, Adolph Vigil, and Tara Stroesenreuther.

With district superintendent Ronda Rein preparing to retire, the legal outcome of the board seat dispute could mean a shift to a less conservative school board majority and change the direction of the 12,000-student district. In addition to hiring a new superintendent this summer, the board could decide whether to keep or replace the school district’s law firm, which is headed by attorney Brad Miller.

Miller has been at the center of controversy in recent months. He helped create Riverstone last summer at the behest of a conservative Arizona-based law firm seeking a test case on the question of public funding for religious schools, emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate. The Pueblo 70 school board voted to allow Riverstone, which is authorized by a public education co-op, to locate within the district’s boundaries.

In an email exchange with Maxfield on Tuesday, Miller pushed back against Maxfield’s assertion that Bennett broke state law by appointing Carnes to the vacant seat.

“I am disappointed that you would feign to believe that her appointment was in error,” Miller wrote, according to a copy of the email provided by Maxfield to Chalkbeat.

The board seat came open after a former board member, Anne Ochs, resigned in December after a district parent criticized her for hiding key facts about Riverstone’s creation and failing to disclose a conflict of interest.

Four candidates applied to fill the vacancy, but the board deadlocked with repeated 2-2 ties at its Feb. 10 meeting. Then Board Vice President AJ Wilson fell ill and was helped out of the room. That left three board members and the possibility that one of the candidates could be appointed in a 2-1 vote.

But Bennett, who had sided with Wilson in the vacancy votes, never returned from the 10-minute recess she’d called or adjourned the meeting. Six days later, she announced that she’d appointed Carnes to the vacant seat.

Under Colorado law, school board presidents can appoint a new member if the board can’t agree on a candidate after 60 days.

Carnes was sworn in by Bennett on Feb. 25, in what Maxfield characterized in his letter as an “unannounced non-public ceremony.”

As of last month, Carnes was listed as an elementary teacher at a school run by Forging Education, a Christian group that also runs Riverstone. Her appointment means that three of the five Pueblo 70 school board members — a majority — have had connections to Forging Education.

In a 10-page letter sent to the Pueblo 70 school board on March 4, Maxfield alleged that Bennett circumvented Colorado’s open meetings law when she abruptly “fled” that February school board meeting and later made the vacancy appointment “unilaterally.”

He argued that Bennett’s sudden departure on Feb. 10 was meant to prevent the public from witnessing the selection of a new board member in an open public meeting that had been noticed in advance.

“Notwithstanding the tragic hardship to Vice President Wilson, after his departure the Board maintained quorum, the business was not concluded, and such business was urgent, under a statutory deadline,” Maxfield said.

Quorum refers to the minimum number of members needed for a public body to take votes on public business. For a five-member board, quorum requires three board members to be present.

Maxfield asked for 11 remedies in his letter, including that the appointment of Carnes be invalidated and that the board re-do the selection process. (Maxfield referred to Carnes as the “Director-in-Error.”) He also asked that an outside lawyer conduct a “comprehensive governance and conflict-of-interest review.”

Miller rebuffed those requests in his Tuesday email to Maxfield and said Carnes’ appointment was “properly completed.”.

“The political interplay was anything but smooth and I can agree that it always would be optimal if a majority of the remaining directors could agree on an appointee,” Miller wrote. “However, the tie breaking mechanism is clearly set forth in Colorado statute.”

Bennett did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment about the alleged violation.

It’s not clear when Maxfield’s three clients will decide whether to file a lawsuit over the alleged open meetings violations. Miller indicated in his Tuesday response to Maxfield that he will discuss the matter with the Pueblo 70 school board on March 17 and will follow up with Maxfield afterwards.

Maxfield and Miller’s firm have faced off in recent years in other cases about transparency.

In February, a Woodland Park mother who is a client of Maxfield emerged victorious after a district court judge ordered the Woodland Park school district to pay her more than $144,000 in legal costs after she successfully showed the district violated the Colorado Open Meetings Law. Miller’s firm represented the school district in that case.

Maxfield told Miller in their Tuesday email exchange that if his three clients decide to sue, they’ll “seek payment by the Board of their reasonable attorney fees and costs.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Authorizer of Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ settles with family for $20,000

2026-03-09T23:24:19+00:00

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The authorizer of Riverstone Academy, a controversial “public Christian school” in southern Colorado, has agreed to pay the parents of a student $20,000 to settle a special education complaint filed by the family last fall.

Many details of the family’s complaint and the settlement are unclear because privacy laws shield key documents and information from the public.

The highly redacted settlement agreement shows that the $20,000 payout is meant to cover “compensatory services” for the student at the center of the complaint. In general, compensatory services are makeup special education services that school systems must pay for, sometimes in response to a complaint or lawsuit.

Riverstone’s authorizer, Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES, will pay the family in three installments over the next 10 months, according to a copy of the settlement agreement obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request. ERBOCES is one of 21 publicly funded education co-ops in Colorado.

These co-ops are meant to support school districts. This one started Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school.’

The $20,000 settlement is the latest bump in the tumultuous life of Riverstone, which was launched last summer at the behest of a conservative law firm in order to spark a lawsuit on the question of public funding for religious schools, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat.

Riverstone opened quietly in August with about 30 kindergarten through fifth grade students. By late January, Pueblo County officials forced school officials to close Riverstone’s building — a former office in an industrial area — because of ongoing health and safety violations.

The school is now operating out of a temporary location that school officials won’t reveal.

In February, Riverstone and ERBOCES sued the state, alleging religious discrimination over the possibility that the state could withhold public funding from the school following an audit underway now.

As part of the $20,000 settlement, ERBOCES will be required to provide training to Riverstone, the agreement says. Information about the type of training is redacted.

The settlement also specifies that ERBOCES denies the family’s allegations and that the parents agree not to sue ERBOCES over the claims made in the settlement.

Finally, the agreement stipulates that ERBOCES and the family can’t publicly disclose the settlement terms. In response to inquiries, “Parties agree that they will limit any verbal or written response to the following: ‘This matter has been settled by agreement, and no further comment can be made,’” the agreement states.

The agreement was signed on ERBOCES’ behalf by Suzanne Romero, who is listed on the group’s website as director of special education and full-time programs. The signing date was redacted.

Minutes from the Jan. 15 meeting of the five-member Riverstone Academy board shed some light on the decision to settle the family’s complaint.

Under a heading titled “Mediation Update,” the partially redacted minutes indicate that without a settlement, there could be “continued litigation.” It also said Riverstone’s lawyer recommended settling based on “Public relations impact” and “Cost, risk and likelihood of success.”

In response to a public records request from Chalkbeat, Colorado Department of Education officials said they could not provide any complaint or the results of any investigation because special education complaints and findings are confidential under state law.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

These co-ops are meant to support school districts. This one started Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school.’

2026-02-28T00:21:07+00:00

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Six decades ago, Colorado lawmakers made it easier for school districts to band together and offer services that they couldn’t afford to provide on their own.

The creation of Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, allowed districts to pool resources for things like special education services, career and technical education, early intervention services, gifted and talented programming, and teacher training.

Last fall, one of these co-ops proved to be a useful vehicle for a different aim — opening a school intended to test the legality of spending public money on religious education.

Education reEnvisioned, or ERBOCES, launched Riverstone Academy in Pueblo County with 30 elementary students in August. Billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” it is the most prominent example of how its authorizer is using its BOCES status to further school choice.

The school — and ERBOCES’ recent role steering state dollars to home-schooling — is raising questions about whether these co-ops created in a different era for different purposes have too much latitude and too few guardrails.

The Colorado Department of Education’s enforcement powers are limited to certain areas, such as special education, a department spokesperson said. Most oversight falls to BOCES’ boards of directors, which can vary in how much or little they hold school operators accountable.

“Nobody in the state actually regulates how BOCES operate or what they can do,” said Ken Haptonstall, co-executive director of the Colorado BOCES Association, a membership group for BOCES.

“There’s no statutory way for the department to be able to say, ‘Oh, you’re being bad as a BOCES or you need to do this as a BOCES,’” he said.

Some lawmakers and education officials contacted by Chalkbeat said Riverstone’s creation shows school-authorizing safeguards failed — and creates a dangerous precedent.

George Welsh, executive director of the San Luis Valley BOCES, doesn’t agree with public funding for religious schools and said Riverstone’s launch by a BOCES creates a slippery slope.

“Obviously, if one can do it, why couldn’t all?” he said.

Riverstone is currently receiving state funding. But if a state audit underway now finds the school is ineligible because of Colorado’s ban on religious public school, the state could claw back the money. Riverstone and ERBOCES cited that possibility in a lawsuit filed against the state this month for religious discrimination.

BOCES exist to pool district resources

A 1965 Colorado law allowed the creation of BOCES. A year later, 14 school districts in the San Luis Valley banded together to form the state’s first one. Most states have a version of the public education co-ops, though names and formats vary.

In Colorado, BOCES are typically made up of a group of school districts from a single region. About half include a college or university. The cooperatives are governed by a board of at least five people, usually school board members from districts that belong to the BOCES. In some cases, school district superintendents can serve on the BOCES board.

Five Colorado BOCES authorize schools. ERBOCES, unlike the other four, doesn’t hire school staff or oversee day-to-day operations at its schools. Instead, it contracts with outside groups to operate them.

Some BOCES focus on offering a single service or program. One in Adams County provides insurance services to its three member districts. The only job of the Denver-based Expeditionary BOCES is to run a single school, the Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning.

“The purpose of the BOCES is it’s a collaborative,” said Welsh, who heads the 14-member San Luis Valley BOCES.

He offered an example: “We have six and a half school psychologists in our stable … and so they serve all the school districts in the San Luis Valley in terms of the identification process for special education students.”

Welsh said his BOCES also runs a program for several young adults in the valley who have significant emotional disabilities. This semester, his team launched a pilot internship program that matches high schoolers in member districts with local businesses so they can get on-the-job experience.

Like many BOCES serving small, rural districts, Welsh’s BOCES is considered a “special education administrative unit.” It’s a label that can apply to a school district or a BOCES and means that the entity must ensure special education laws are followed for students with disabilities.

Royce Tranum, the executive director of San Juan Boces, which has eight member school districts in southwestern Colorado, said one of the “curious” things about BOCES is that there are strict state rules governing some areas but not others. For example, the state carefully monitors BOCES for the job they do as special education administrative units.

“They oversee parts of what we do, but not the organization as a whole,” she said.

Education reEnvisioned is different from other BOCES

ERBOCES was founded in 2013 as Colorado Digital BOCES.

Brad Miller, an attorney who helped start the co-op, said by email that its founders “recognized that school districts are reticent to offer student-focused special schools and programs … and that a BOCES was statutorily intended for such innovations and opportunities.”

State law says the cooperatives were enacted for the “expansion of education services of the public schools” in Colorado and, where possible, to enable “two or more school districts to cooperate in furnishing services.”

But mostly, ERBOCES isn’t helping member districts achieve economies of scale.

Education reEnvisioned has three member school districts with no shared boundaries, including District 49 in El Paso County and the Montezuma-Cortez district, which is almost 400 miles away in southwest Colorado. Pikes Peak State College is a member, and the Elizabeth school district in Elbert County joined Feb 10.

Ken Witt, the head of ERBOCES, has long been a familiar face in Colorado’s conservative education circles. As school board president in Jeffco more than a decade ago, he was part of a three-member conservative board majority that was recalled. Later, during his tenure as superintendent in Woodland Park, there was a staff exodus and accusations of transparency lapses.

Since Witt took the reins of ERBOCES in 2017, the cooperative has grown from two schools to 10, and enrollment in those schools has grown from 2,200 to 13,500 students, a 600% increase. Many of those students come from outside ERBOCES’ member districts.

Ken Witt has been the executive director of Education ReEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services since 2017.

Of Colorado’s 186 school districts and co-ops, ERBOCES is the 22nd largest, serving more students than some Denver metro school districts.

In 2022, ERBOCES began authorizing state-funded home-school enrichment programs, something no other BOCES does. Such programs typically offer one day of classes or activities each week, and the state pays half the normal per-pupil rate. Today, the cooperative authorizes more than 50 such programs, with more than 8,000 students.

Witt said in a presentation last fall that 30-40 more home-school enrichment programs are in the works.

Witt sent ERBOCES’ mission and vision statements to Chalkbeat and answered a couple questions by email, but he didn’t respond to follow-up questions or agree to an interview for this story.

Some district officials have objected to ERBOCES placing schools or programs outside member districts.

The Colorado Springs School District 11 sued ERBOCES over the issue in 2020 after ERBOCES placed a new school in the district without permission. The district argued that allowing the cooperative to open schools in non-member districts without permission violated the principle of local control. In 2024, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in District 11’s favor, saying state law doesn’t say or suggest that BOCES were meant to open schools in any district they wished.

Haptonstall, of the Colorado BOCES association, said he gets calls from people asking about ERBOCES: “Why are they opening this up in my region?”

“We always encourage them to call the Department of Education and just clarify whether or not that’s legal,” he said.

Cayce Hamerschlag, a mother from the 2,200-student Montezuma-Cortez district, said BOCES were created to provide benefits to member districts, but she doesn’t see that occurring with ERBOCES. Instead, she said it’s acting primarily as a school authorizer, drawing away students from school districts around the state.

ERBOCES’ six online schools enroll about 80 students from Montezuma-Cortez and several hundred from nearby districts, according to data shared at a recent school board meeting. Hamerschlag said when districts lose students, it creates a downward spiral. Declining enrollment leads to fewer offerings for students, the loss of good teachers, decreasing interest in neighborhood schools, and eventually a hit to the local economy, she said.

“I’m disgusted because I’m seeing the dismantling of public education here in Cortez,” said Hamerschlag, who works for San Juan BOCES in southwest Colorado but didn’t speak to Chalkbeat on behalf of the group. “I hear of it happening across the state, and my heart breaks for the students and communities that it’s affecting.”

Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, said by email that if Riverstone is found eligible for public funding it could set a precedent, encouraging every religious school “to seek ‘public school’ status so they can receive public dollars.”

But one lawmaker believes Colorado’s current system “too often protects institutions over students and families.”

Sen. Scott Bright, a Republican from Weld County, said by email, “BOCES and the Department of Education should not be locked in a tug-of-war; instead, the legislature ought to reinstill clear guidance so that local partners are not forced to ‘push the edge’ of the law just to expand options for families,” he said.

How Education reEnvisioned created Riverstone

Miller, the lawyer for ERBOCES, said that BOCES “operate schools or programs at the direction of their members.”

But there’s no evidence that District 49 or Montezuma-Cortez officials requested or directed the launch of Riverstone. The school is nowhere near either district.

An email written by Miller indicates that Riverstone arose because Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative law firm based in Arizona, sought a test case on religious public schools after the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked in a similar case out of Oklahoma last spring.

“ADF asked me if I could find a way for a parallel case to be initiated out of Colorado,” Miller wrote in the June 4 email labeled “privileged and confidential.”

Riverstone opened two months later. Key start-up documents didn’t mention Riverstone’s religious affiliation or that it was intended to spark a lawsuit. There were no public deliberations about the idea of creating a religious public school.

The school board in the Pueblo 70 district, where Riverstone is located, did give permission for the school to locate there as required by the 2024 court decision, but the school’s real purpose went unmentioned at both meetings where it was on the agenda.

It’s not clear whether the ERBOCES board, which unanimously approves the vast majority of motions before it, discussed the school’s true purpose either. The cooperative doesn’t livestream its board meetings, and an ERBOCES employee told Chalkbeat the audio recording of the August 12 meeting where Riverstone’s contract was approved no longer exists.

Last summer, as Riverstone was taking shape, four of ERBOCES’ five board members may not have been eligible to serve on the board, based on Chalkbeat’s review of the state law on BOCES board makeup.

Jeremy Dys, a lawyer for the cooperative from the First Liberty Institute, said by email that ERBOCES Board President Lis Richard is an appointee of Montezuma-Cortez and John Graham, who recently left the board, was an appointee of District 49. Dys didn’t explain how this aligns with state law since neither had been a school board member or administrator in their respective districts for one to three years.

Dys described two other board members — Bethany Drosendahl and James Salazar — as “at large” members, which is allowed under state law provided they live in member districts. Asked why the two members live in non-member districts, Dys didn’t respond.

Salazar participated in the June vote on Riverstone but abstained from the August vote, possibly because of a conflict of interest. He was appointed president of the Riverstone Academy board in July.

None of the five ERBOCES board members when Riverstone was approved responded to Chalkbeat’s request for comment. (District 49 recently appointed a school board member to the ERBOCES board.)

Riverstone is run by a Pueblo nonprofit called Forging Education that runs Christian private schools and home-school programs.

Witt told Chalkbeat last fall that Riverstone is a public school because it was authorized by ERBOCES, and in January, the school received a $55,000 installment of state funding. But Forging Education officials have classified the school as private on their lease, insurance policy, and other documents. The school also acts like a private school by limiting public transparency.

Quin Friberg, the local pastor who heads Forging Education and Riverstone Academy, recently told an attorney working on behalf of Chalkbeat that Forging Education is not a public entity and therefore not subject to a state law that allows news organizations and others access to public records.

In early October, when Witt publicly announced Riverstone was the state’s “first public Christian school,” Pueblo County officials were surprised. They’d known that Friberg was interested in starting a school, but not that he’d opened it to students without ensuring the building was up to code. They quickly issued more than a dozen health and safety violations.

In late January, Riverstone leaders agreed to close the school building after orders from county officials. School leaders have since refused to disclose the school’s temporary location, and ERBOCES officials say they have no records showing the school’s current address.

Correction: April 15, 2026: Due to incorrect information provided by the Montezuma-Cortez school district, a previous version of this story contained incorrect information about the benefits the district received from belonging to Education ReEnvisioned BOCES.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Fallout from controversial ‘public Christian school’ in southern Colorado leads to school board clash

2026-02-25T18:44:33+00:00

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A five-minute school board meeting. A quick exit by a school board president. A school superintendent who said she was disgusted and embarrassed.

That was Tuesday’s Pueblo 70 school board meeting in a nutshell. The contentious meeting reflects the ongoing fallout from the controversial launch of Riverstone Academy, which its authorizer has called Colorado’s “first public Christian school.”

The dispute that cut short Tuesday’s meeting surrounds the appointment of a fifth board member who could either align with two conservative-leaning board members or with two board members who’ve criticized how Riverstone came about. The factions also have opposite takes on the district’s attorney, Brad Miller, who helped launch Riverstone at the behest of a conservative law firm in order to spark a religious liberty lawsuit.

Riverstone is a tiny school in Pueblo County, but it has generated outsized ripple effects since it opened last summer, including the lawsuit that Miller envisioned, concern from state lawmakers and education officials, and ongoing tension in the Pueblo 70 district.

New site of ‘public Christian school’ a mystery as old location draws scrutiny

The board vacancy came about after a school board member with ties to Riverstone’s authorizer resigned in December. Problems filling the seat emerged at a Feb. 10 meeting, when the four sitting board members conducted numerous rounds of voting on candidates for the open seat and deadlocked every time. Then Board Vice President AJ Wilson became ill, prompting Board President Ann Bennett to call a 10-minute recess. Multiple people rushed to assist Wilson out of the room.

But Bennett, who along with Wilson is part of the board’s conservative wing, never returned to the meeting room, where she likely would have been on the losing side of a 2-1 split. Several days later, she appointed her favored candidate, Susie Carnes, using a power the board president is allowed to wield if the board can’t agree on a candidate.

Fast forward two weeks to Tuesday at 6 p.m., Wilson was absent, as was Carnes, who’s an elementary teacher for the Christian organization that operates Riverstone. She was set to be sworn in that night. Again, that left Bennett facing off against two board members who disagreed with her unannounced departure from the previous meeting and her choice of Carnes to fill the vacancy.

The board clashed immediately as member Michelle Erickson sought to make a statement, and Bennett cut her off.

“No, a statement is not part of the agenda, so we’re not doing that right now,” Bennett said.

Board member Mark Emery, who generally aligns with Erickson, responded, “The agenda isn’t proper. The last meeting was never adjourned.”

Seconds later as Erickson tried to read her statement, Miller, the district’s lawyer, interjected.

“This is improper,” he said. “We either get into this meeting or we don’t, and if we don’t, then we’re done.”

Bennett made a motion to approve the agenda, but nobody seconded her motion, a requirement to vote on it.

“You can gavel the meeting, we’re done,” Miller said to Bennett.

“Meeting adjourned,” she said quickly.

Erickson pushed back against the adjournment, saying, “We need to have conversation here.” Some members of the audience began to shout at Bennett and Miller as they gathered their things to leave.

A woman near the front told Bennett, “Listen or get out.”

“You get out,” said Bennett, “Security, will you please remove this woman?”

“Is she allowed to remove people from a meeting that’s no longer happening?” someone asked.

Someone else said of Bennett, “She’s leaving the meeting again, just like last time.”

After Bennett and Miller left, Erickson read her statement to the crowd still in the room, saying the “abandonment” of the Feb. 10 meeting and the appointment of Carnes by Bennett compromises transparency.

Superintendent Ronda Rein, who was clearly frustrated, also spoke.

“There are some items on this agenda that absolutely have to move forward whether we have board approval or not, like February’s payroll,” she said. “We are going to move forward with business and running our district, with or without a full board.”

She concluded, saying, “It’s frankly disgusting to me that this is where we’re at. It’s embarrassing to me.”

The district’s administrators and staff will continue to serve kids, she said, “the way we always have and always will, whether we have the vote or we don’t.”

The audience gave her a standing ovation.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Where’s Riverstone? New site of ‘public Christian school’ unclear as old location draws scrutiny

2026-02-20T02:02:26+00:00

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Leaders of Riverstone Academy, which backers have called Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” won’t reveal where the school has been located since its original building was closed in late January over health and safety concerns.

Jeremy Dys, a lawyer for the school’s authorizer, said by email on Wednesday that the Pueblo County elementary school is operating at an “alternate location in the area for a few weeks until it is expected it will move back to its previous location.”

But a decision Wednesday night by the county planning commission dealt a blow to that plan. In a 5-4 vote, the commissioners rejected a recommendation for a special use permit that would allow certain kinds of schools on the property where Riverstone had been located.

The planning commission vote isn’t the final word on whether the controversial school can return to its original building in an industrial area, but it’s the latest stumbling block for founders who quietly opened Riverstone last summer without ensuring it met zoning, building, fire, and health codes.

The school, which is currently receiving state funding, describes itself on its website as a public elementary school offering a “Christian foundation.” Even though the school is tiny — serving about 30 kindergarten through fifth grade students — its existence is notable because if backers get their way, it could upend years of legal precedent barring public schools from providing religious education.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ sues state over ban on religious public schools

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate Riverstone was created at the behest of a conservative law firm in order to spark a religious liberty lawsuit that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Public religious schools have never existed in Colorado because the state constitution prohibits them.

Riverstone and its authorizer — Education ReEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Education Services, or ERBOCES — filed a lawsuit challenging the ban on Feb. 13.

Some planning commissioners expressed alarm at Wednesday’s meeting that Riverstone wants to locate in an industrial area where heavy trucks and machinery regularly travel.

Commission member Karim Ayoub said his worst fear is “a kid choosing to walk to school and then ending up underneath a cement truck.”

“I think that’s the exact wrong area for a school,” said Brad Lisac, the chair of the planning commission.

Not everyone agreed.

“The people who will be attending this school would be doing it by choice,” said Commission member John Wark. ”Parents can make decisions about the safety just as well and better than we can.”

The discussion also highlighted confusion about what kind of school Riverstone is. Some commissioners said a letter provided by the school suggested that it’s a vocational school that serves high school students learning skills like welding. They were surprised to learn it serves kids as young as kindergarten.

Planning Commissioner Robert Reinert described the news as “an enlightenment” and said of the original school site,“That is not an area for that age group.”

Riverstone is an elementary school that teaches reading, math, science, and social studies. The school also advertises trades-based electives. That includes building with Legos, making wooden Pinewood Derby cars, and go-karts, Quin Friberg, Riverstone’s executive director, told Chalkbeat last fall.

Friberg did not attend Wednesday’s meeting. The school was represented by Chris Pasternak, a real estate agent who is a Riverstone Academy board member, and architect Dave Weihrich.

While the planning commission rejected Riverstone’s bid for a special use permit on Wednesday, the three-member Pueblo Board of County Commissioners could make a different decision in March. School leaders are also appealing the cease and desist order from Pueblo County officials that led to the school building’s closure in January.

The closure came after months of concern by county officials over a host of code violations at the site. Multiple documents and interviews with county officials show that Riverstone’s leaders didn’t follow routine procedures for seeking permits, inspections, and approvals from local officials before opening the school.

Reinert asked Pasternak at Wednesday’s meeting, “What are you going to do to convince us that you aren’t going to keep breaking the rules? You’ve done it consistently to this point.”

After a pause, Pasternak responded that the school had moved out of its original building.

“They’re aware of this process and everything that’s required of it,” he said.

In response to an open records request from Chalkbeat asking for any document showing the name or address of the school’s current location, Riverstone officials sent a screenshot of a short text that was sent to Riverstone parents after the school building closed that linked to an online form with more information

When asked for access to the form, school officials told Chalkbeat, “The form link is no longer active.” They said by email they have no records with the name or address of the school’s temporary location.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said Riverstone has not updated its address with the state. Pueblo County officials said they hadn’t been alerted about Riverstone’s new location. It’s unclear if that location meets health and safety rules for schools.

Dys, who’s involved in Riverstone’s lawsuit against the state, questioned why the location where “30 vulnerable children” are attending school needs to be revealed.

Riverstone’s original location on Aspen Circle was posted on the school’s website and social media, the ERBOCES website, and was on file with the state.

Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that Jeremy Dys is a lawyer for Riverstone Academy. He is a lawyer for the group that authorizes Riverstone. The story has also been updated to reflect that Chris Pasternak is a member of Riverstone Academy’s board.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ sues state over ban on religious public schools

2026-02-18T00:26:50+00:00

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A southern Colorado elementary school that backers have called “Colorado’s first public Christian school” has sued state officials over the state’s ban on religious public schools, alleging religious discrimination.

Riverstone Academy, along with its authorizer, Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES, filed a lawsuit last week in federal district court against 10 state education leaders.

Although Riverstone is currently receiving state education funding, the money could eventually be clawed back by the state, which would be “the end of the school as it currently exists” and create financial and accounting difficulties for ERBOCES, the lawsuit says.

Riverstone, which advertises itself as offering a “Christian foundation,” opened quietly in Pueblo County last August with about 30 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate the school was created at the behest of a conservative law firm in order to spark a religious liberty lawsuit that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The lawsuit filed Feb. 13 appears to be the start of that legal effort.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ closes building to address officials’ safety concerns

According to the lawsuit, Riverstone and ERBOCES want a court order to prevent Colorado officials from clawing back the school’s funding and a declaration that certain provisions in the Colorado Constitution violate the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit comes even as Riverstone’s location remains a mystery. School officials closed the school’s building — a former office in an industrial area — in late January after orders from local officials who cited numerous health and safety violations. Riverstone officials have provided a screenshot of a text to Chalkbeat indicating Riverstone has a temporary location, but they have so far refused to say where it is.

The defendants in the Riverstone case include Colorado Education Commissioner Susana Córdova and the nine members of the Colorado State Board of Education.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said by email Tuesday, “While we are working closely with our legal counsel, we are not able to discuss pending litigation.”

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

Riverstone Academy and ERBOCES are represented by four law firms but not Alliance Defending Freedom, the firm that sought a “test case,” according to the emails obtained by Chalkbeat. The firms include First & Fourteenth, First Liberty Institute, Dechert, and Miller Farmer Carlson Law, which is headed by Brad Miller.

Miller is an education attorney who represents several conservative-leaning Colorado districts and who wrote the email indicating that Riverstone’s creation was for the purpose of instigating a court case.

The state letter at the center of the lawsuit

After Riverstone hit the headlines in October, the Colorado Department of Education sent a letter to Ken Witt, the head of ERBOCES, suggesting that Riverstone may not be eligible for public funding.

The letter said public schools are generally required to be nonsectarian, which means secular, and cited the Colorado and U.S. Constitutions.

“ERBOCES is a public entity bound by the federal and state constitutions,” the letter said. “Thus, any school that ERBOCES operates must be nonsectarian in nature.”

Despite what the letter said, the department is funding Riverstone for now. Department officials have said they won’t make a final decision on whether to claw back money until an audit of ERBOCES is complete, probably in early 2027. ERBOCES is one of 68 school districts and BOCES undergoing audits this year, according to a list released by the Education Department in January.

The lawsuit repeatedly cites the October letter from the Education Department as well as the audit as evidence that Riverstone and ERBOCES are being unfairly treated.

It acknowledges that the letter “correctly summarized Colorado law,” but says the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s free exercise provision in the First Amendment by prohibiting ERBOCES from contracting with religious schools. Specifically, it cites a provision in the state constitution that bars public money for religious purposes.

Often called a “Blaine Amendment,” such provisions exist in many state constitutions and are named for the 19th century congressman who promoted the concept.

The provision in Colorado’s constitution was “adopted out of overt hostility to particular religious denominations,” the lawsuit states. “State laws that demonstrate hostility to religion violate the Free Exercise Clause.”

The lawsuit also cites the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection and the First Amendment’s guarantee against government preference for a particular religion, known as the establishment clause.

Is this Christian school public or private? The answer has financial and legal implications.

ERBOCES authorized Riverstone last summer. A nonprofit called Forging Education runs the school. Quin Friberg, a local pastor who leads both Riverstone and Forging Education, has described Riverstone as a public school on the school’s website but as a private school on its insurance policy and other documents.

In response to repeated public records requests by Chalkbeat for documents related to Riverstone, he recently told an attorney working on behalf of Chalkbeat that Forging Education is not a public entity and therefore not subject to the Colorado Open Records Act.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Tennessee House passes bill allowing Ten Commandments displays in schools

2026-02-12T22:12:45+00:00

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Tennessee House Republicans on Thursday approved a bill allowing, though not requiring, public schools to display the Ten Commandments.

Supporters of the bill have argued the language from the Christian Bible is a foundational historical document relevant to K-12 education across the state. House Democrats pushed back on Thursday, arguing the measure raises constitutional concerns and infringes on the rights of students who may not practice Christianity.

“If you want to have religion in schools, there are private schools that kids can go to,” Rep. Justin Pearson, a Democrat from Memphis, said Thursday. “In fact, this body passed vouchers to allow for kids to go to private religious schools, using public money to do so.”

Supporters of Tennessee’s proposed law say it can withstand constitutional questions because public schools can choose whether or not to display the language from the Christian Bible. The law also treats the Ten Commandments as a historical document, aligning it with the U.S. or Tennessee Constitution.

“We’re not forcing anybody to do anything,” sponsor Rep. Michael Hale, a Smithville Republican, said Thursday.

Despite the House passage of the bill, the legislation still has a way to go in the upper chamber. Senate Bill 303, the companion bill, has not yet been scheduled for a committee hearing.

The effort is part of a larger legal U.S. fight over Ten Commandments displays in schools.

Laws requiring school displays have been struck down over constitutional concerns, but a potential U.S. Supreme Court fight is brewing over the issue.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is currently considering constitutional challenges to two Texas and Louisiana laws. Opponents of the laws argue they violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibiting the government from endorsing or promoting a specific religion.

Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ closes building to address officials’ safety concerns

2026-02-02T23:53:36+00:00

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Leaders of Riverstone Academy, which backers have called “Colorado’s first public Christian school,” agreed on Friday to close the school’s building in Pueblo County “effective immediately.”

The decision, which affects about 30 kindergarten through fifth grade students, came after county officials threatened to shut off the building’s utilities in a Friday letter to school officials. They cited ongoing health and safety concerns, including that the building lacks the proper fire safety systems.

Quin Friberg, a local pastor and Riverstone’s executive director, responded the same day, saying the building would close to students while school officials work to meet county requirements.

It’s unclear if the closure of Riverstone’s building marks the school’s demise or if its leaders will operate the school elsewhere until the problems are fixed. Regardless, the abrupt change represents a setback for the school, which has sparked controversy since an official involved in Riverstone’s creation announced its Christian affiliation at a public meeting in October.

Colorado school district may drop attorney who helped create state’s ‘first public Christian school’

The school’s founders opened Riverstone quickly and quietly last summer in leased space in an industrial area near concrete and marijuana businesses. They didn’t reveal the school’s religious affiliation in key start-up documents and emails obtained by Chalkbeat indicate Riverstone was created to produce a test case in the courts over whether public money can be spent on religious schools. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on a similar case out of Oklahoma last spring.

Riverstone is currently receiving public funding, but state officials have said the money could be clawed back if they determine the school is ineligible through an audit. The Colorado Department of Education confirmed on Friday that the school’s authorizer, Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ER BOCES, as well as School District 49, which is the BOCES’ fiscal agent, will be audited this year.

In a letter to county building officials late Friday afternoon, Friberg confirmed that Riverstone would comply with the county’s order to close its building at 1950 Aspen Circle.

He wrote, “Effective immediately, Riverstone Academy will not operate the building for use as a school while the administrative process continues. Students will not be present in the building for instructional purposes during this interim period.”

Friberg also said that Forging Education, the nonprofit that operates Riverstone and that he also heads, planned to appeal the county’s closure order. Lawyers for Forging Education submitted the appeal to county officials Saturday.

On Monday, Friberg did not respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment about whether Riverstone students are getting instruction since the building’s closure.

The person who answered the phone at Riverstone on Monday said she doesn’t answer questions from non-parents and hung up. Jenna Wolfe, whose LLC owns the Pueblo County property where Riverstone is located, couldn’t be reached for comment Monday.

Lawyers for Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ resist county order to close building

The closure of Riverstone’s building comes after months of concern by county officials over building, zoning, health, and fire code violations, and more than three weeks after an attorney for Pueblo County first ordered the school to close its building.

Despite that order, school officials didn’t close the building to students in January. Through a lawyer, they pushed back, arguing they’d made a good faith effort to comply with county requirements and that closing the building would be disruptive to students and families.

Multiple documents and interviews with county officials show that Riverstone’s leaders didn’t follow routine procedures for seeking permits, inspections, and approvals from local officials. After the school’s existence came to light in October, the fire marshal ordered fire safety checks at the building every half hour.

The monthslong back-and-forth between Riverstone and county officials over health and safety violations at the school led to a hearing before Colorado District Court Judge Amiel Markenson on Jan. 28.

The hearing in Pueblo County was not livestreamed, but Anthony Mestas, a county spokesperson, said by email afterwards, “The Court did not order them to cease occupancy of the building but did not bar any enforcement action by the County including utility disconnection.”

Two days later, on Jan. 30, the county sent a “Notice of imminent enforcement action” to Riverstone officials. In it, officials warned that they would disconnect utilities at 8 a.m. Monday to “abate unsafe and unlawful occupancy.”

The notice cited a variety of violations, including that the building is not approved for occupancy by a school and that the building does not have the proper fire safety systems, such as alarms, lighting, and building features that would slow a fire’s spread.

“Occupying a building not approved or inspected for Education use places children at heightened and immediate risk in the event of fire, emergency, or evacuation,” the notice said.

Mestas said the county didn’t order utility disconnection at Riverstone’s building on Monday morning because school officials agreed on Friday to close the building to students.

Friberg’s Friday letter to county officials said access to the building would only be allowed for non-student uses, such as administrative, maintenance, and construction activities.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school district may drop attorney who helped create state’s ‘first public Christian school’

2026-01-27T01:18:55+00:00

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A southern Colorado school district could soon drop the law firm whose controversial lead lawyer helped launch what backers have called the state’s “first public Christian school.”

The Pueblo 70 school board will vote Tuesday on whether to issue a request for proposals for attorney services — a first step that could lead the district to replace attorney Brad Miller and his Colorado Springs-based firm, Miller Farmer Carlson Law.

At a board meeting earlier this month, two of four Pueblo 70 school board members raised concerns about Miller’s involvement in the district’s legal affairs. Board member Mark Emery suggested that Miller has an agenda shaped by religious and political leanings that’s created turmoil for the district.

“Let’s start with a clean slate, free of perception of impropriety and the shadow of conflict of interest,” said Emery, who broached the idea of shopping for new law firms on Jan. 13.

Board member Michelle Erickson, who like Emery was elected in November, agreed with his proposal, suggesting a switch to a well-qualified local firm could save the district money.

Two board members, President Ann Bennett and Vice President A.J. Wilson, pushed back.

Bennett, who was also elected in November, said, “In my limited interaction with him, he’s been very knowledgeable, very thorough, very careful to not offer opinions to just offer options and I’ve appreciated that.”

Wilson, who was elected in 2021, said Miller had done a good job for the district, citing a time when Miller’s recommendation about a bond issue helped save a significant amount of money.

Miller said by email Monday that he didn’t attend the Jan. 13 board meeting and was “not aware of any comments by board members regarding our role as legal counsel.”

The Pueblo 70 school board normally has five members, but one member, Anne Ochs, resigned abruptly in December after a district parent confronted her about misleading statements Ochs made related to the creation of the public Christian school, Riverstone Academy.

A fifth board member will be appointed in February, after the vote on whether to seek proposals from law firms but before any decision on whether to replace Miller’s firm.

Miller pushed to start Riverstone Academy, emails show

Miller and his firm have long represented a number of conservative-leaning Colorado school districts and charter schools, including several currently involved in high-profile legal fights over library book bans and rules for transgender athletes.

Last summer, Miller sought to launch Riverstone Academy in order to spark a lawsuit on the question of public funding for religious schools, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat. Colorado’s constitution bars public religious schools.

In a June 4 email, Miller told the Pueblo 70 school board that a conservative law firm called Alliance Defending Freedom had approached him after the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on a similar case out of Oklahoma.

“ADF asked me if I could find a way for a parallel case to be initiated out of Colorado,” he said.

Miller went on to explain that Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ER BOCES, which he also represents, would create the school. The Pueblo 70 school board would then grant the BOCES “the right to operate such a school within the district’s boundaries for purposes of creating this test case,” he said in the email.

Riverstone was started quietly with key start-up documents omitting any reference to religion.

While the school is currently receiving public funding, state officials have said that the money could be clawed back if they determine the school is ineligible after an audit.

Ochs, who was board president when Miller sent the June 4 email, responded within minutes. Soon a vote on locating Riverstone in District 70 was added to the board’s agenda.

In late June, when Ochs voted to approve Riverstone’s location in Pueblo County, she didn’t mention she’d recently accepted a job with the BOCES. Hannah McDowell, the district parent who confronted Ochs in December, suggested that Miller also had a conflict of interest stemming from his work for both Education reEnvisioned BOCES and the Pueblo 70 district.

“I think that Mr. Miller representing and being paid by everyone involved while working to advocate for a third party is a problem,” she said.

“I ask the new board to look closely into Mr. Miller,” she said. “Seriously, just Google him.”

In a video of Miller posted in November by the Teacher Freedom Summit, an event put on by the anti-union group Teacher Freedom Alliance, he described himself as a “board whisperer.”

He said he tries “to help boards to facilitate in this nasty public sphere that they have to work in. Because they have to do everything transparently. They can’t really connive and be secretive and plan things.”

Board members disagree on Miller’s reputation

At the Jan. 13 meeting, Emery and Bennett offered contrasting views about how MIller is perceived by community members

Emery, who advocated for using a local attorney, described Miller as bringing “baggage” and creating distraction in the district.

“He is well-known throughout the state as causing issues in so many school districts,” Emery said.

“We must be talking to different people, Mark, because the feedback I’ve gotten regarding Mr. Miller has all been, not all, but mostly been very positive,” said Bennett. “What I’m hearing is that he commands a high level of respect.”

By the end, both had agreed that putting out a request for proposals made sense.

“It doesn’t hurt anything to do an RFP,” said Emery, “If Mr. Miller is the best candidate, well, then he remains.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Lawyers for Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ resist county order to close building

2026-01-14T01:40:24+00:00

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Lawyers representing the operator of Colorado’s “first public Christian school” are pushing back against an order by Pueblo County officials to close the school building for safety reasons.

In a Jan. 9 letter, the lawyers asked for a meeting and urged county officials not to seek an emergency court order requiring the immediate closure of Riverstone Academy’s building, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Chalkbeat. County officials had warned in a letter to school officials a few days earlier that they might seek such an order.

The dispute over the building is just one facet of the controversy surrounding Riverstone, which drew attention from state and local officials soon after it opened in August with about 30 K-5 students. The school advertises itself as a public elementary school that offers a “Christian foundation.”

In October, state education leaders warned that they might withhold public funding from Riverstone because the Colorado constitution bars religious public schools. In addition, Pueblo County officials identified more than a dozen health, fire, building, and zoning violations related to the building that Riverstone leases, and ordered fire-safety checks at the school every 30 minutes.

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat suggest the school was created to spark a test case in the courts over whether public money could go to religious schools, after the U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on such a case out of Oklahoma last spring. But religious liberty is not likely to be the central issue if Riverstone’s operators were to face Pueblo County in court over their pending dispute.

Lawyer’s letter says operator doesn’t want litigation

In the Jan. 9 letter to Pueblo County officials, attorney Gregory O’Boyle, of the Colorado Springs-based firm Werner O’Boyle Cyberon, asked for a call with county officials to “discuss next steps and to avoid unnecessary conflict.”

“Our goal is full compliance through the normal land-use and building-permit processes, not litigation,” he wrote.

O’Boyle represents Forging Education, which is the group contracted to run Riverstone.

He said Riverstone officials have made a “good faith effort” to comply with county requirements and that “public interest is not served by abruptly displacing K-5 students, requiring families to secure emergency educational arrangements mid-year.”

O’Boyle’s letter notes that 29 children attend the school and eight staff members work there.

O’Boyle did not reply to requests for comment on Tuesday. Neither did Quin Friberg, a Pueblo pastor who is the executive director of both Riverstone and Forging Education.

Marci Day, assistant attorney for Pueblo County, didn’t respond to Chalkbeat questions about whether she would hold a call with Riverstone’s lawyers or whether she would seek an emergency injunction to close the school.

School opened without normal review processes

Riverstone school leaders did not go through the normal zoning and building review processes before opening the school to students last summer, according to previous interviews with county officials and a review of correspondence and documents obtained by Chalkbeat through public records requests.

In Day’s Jan. 6 letter ordering Riverstone officials to close the building, she cited a series of failures by the school’s leaders to follow local regulations.

She noted that county officials told Friberg at a July meeting that schools were not allowed in the industrial-zoned site where he wanted to open Riverstone. She also said that Riverstone officials had failed to submit three required documents to local officials for review, one of which was needed so fire and health officials could determine what changes would be needed to bring the building up to code.

Under the normal procedure for approving a building as a school, “health, safety and welfare concerns would have been required to be addressed prior to approval for occupancy by the appropriate agency,” Day wrote.

Day also cited proposed construction work at Riverstone’s building as part of the rationale for ordering closure.

The proposed changes include the removal of multiple interior walls; new sinks, drinking fountains, and fire safety fixtures; and the construction of a wheelchair ramp at the building’s entrance, according to architectural plans obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

“Due to the current conditions and the construction that will be required to bring the buildings and property into compliance with all building, fire, health, and zoning codes, it has been deemed unsafe to allow the continued occupancy of the buildings, particularly by school children, prior to final approval by Pueblo County,” Day wrote in the Jan. 6 letter.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

What Colorado’s ‘public Christian school’ means for the nation

2026-01-14T00:01:26+00:00

What some are calling a “public Christian school” has opened in Southern Colorado.

Riverstone Academy is unusual in many ways. A grade school, it has just 31 students and sits in a former office building outside the small city of Pueblo. It promises “trades-based learning” with a “Christian foundation.” Riverstone is receiving public funding, but it remains in a legal gray area. In fact, the school was created to test legal boundaries, according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat Colorado, although it is not yet the subject of any litigation.

Riverstone faces an additional barrier. Local authorities recently ordered the school to close its building because of various fire and safety concerns. Its future is in flux.

Read the full story here.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ ordered to close building over safety concerns

2026-01-10T20:23:43+00:00

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Pueblo County officials have ordered the closure of what’s been billed by backers as Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” citing unaddressed safety concerns at the school’s building.

Riverstone Academy officials must acknowledge by Monday evening their intent to close the school at its current location, according to a Jan. 6 letter sent by the assistant county attorney to Quin Friberg, Riverstone’s executive director.

If school leaders don’t comply, county officials will seek an emergency injunction from the courts requiring immediate closure, the letter says.

The county’s order marks the latest development in Riverstone’s short and controversial existence. It opened in August with about 30 kindergarten through fifth grade students, advertising itself as offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum.

It’s unclear if the closure of Riverstone’s building, a former office located in an industrial area, will spell the end of the school or if its leaders will seek to move it elsewhere or switch to an online format. In a December email to a county official, Friberg wrote that Riverstone had “gotten a bit ahead of ourselves” but wanted to find a way to keep its students in school, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat in a public records request.

Friberg did not respond to requests for comment Friday evening or Saturday. Ken Witt and Lis Richard, the executive director and board president, respectively, of Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the public education cooperative that authorized Riverstone to open, did not respond to requests for comment either.

This ‘public Christian school’ opened quietly in Colorado. Now there could be a legal fight.

News of the school burst into the open in October, when Witt publicly declared it Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” surprising state education officials and members of the public.

Leaders from the Colorado Department of Education quickly warned that they could withhold public funding for the school because the Colorado constitution bars religious public schools. Witt countered that withholding public money from the school would amount to religious discrimination.

An email obtained by Chalkbeat suggests that Riverstone was created to spur a lawsuit over the question of whether public money can be used for religious schools. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on such a case out of Oklahoma last spring. Brad Miller, a Colorado lawyer who represents Education reEnvisioned, wrote in the June email that he’d been approached by a Christian law firm about starting a new test case.

In July, Friberg met with county officials about his plans for a school in leased space inside a former office near concrete, landscaping, and marijuana businesses. In late August, county officials sent a six-page letter detailing numerous zoning and building changes that would be needed first, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request. But Friberg had opened Riverstone two weeks earlier.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

In late October, shortly after Riverstone’s existence became widely known, Pueblo County health, fire, building, and zoning officials cited more than a dozen violations and put the school on “fire watch,” which requires someone to patrol the school every half hour to look for signs of fire.

The Jan. 6 letter to Friberg, signed by Assistant County Attorney Marci Day, outlined a series of failures by school officials in ensuring the school meets regulations and is safe for children.

“You were notified at a meeting with Pueblo County Planning and Development in July that the zoning for the property did not allow for the use but proceeded to open Riverstone Academy to the public in August,” she wrote.

She noted that as of Jan. 6, school officials had not turned in three required applications. They include one for a special use permit that would allow the school to be located in a light industrial zone, one for a site development plan, and one to change the building occupancy from a business use to an education use.

She said without the occupancy application, local fire and health officials can’t determine what changes will be required to bring the building up to code.

“Due to the current conditions and the construction that will be required to bring the buildings and property into compliance with all building, fire, health, and zoning codes it has been deemed unsafe to allow the continued occupancy of the buildings, particularly by school children, prior to final approval by Pueblo County,” she wrote.

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ violated health and safety rules, documents show

The removal of multiple walls inside Riverstone’s building, new sinks, drinking fountains, fire safety fixtures, and the construction of a wheelchair ramp at the building’s entrance are among the changes necessary, according to architectural plans submitted by Riverstone officials in December and obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request.

Carmen Howard, the director of the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department, said by email Friday evening that the department had received Riverstone’s special use permit application.

Other documents obtained through public records requests show that Friberg knew the school’s future was in jeopardy because of zoning and other problems.

In a Dec. 30 email from Friberg to Howard, he thanked her for organizing a visit to the school site to “explore whether there’s a path forward that keeps these students in school.”

“I also appreciate your willingness to help us work through a situation where we have gotten a bit ahead of ourselves,” he wrote.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Pueblo District 70 board member resigns in wake of ‘public Christian school’ controversy

2025-12-10T18:05:34+00:00

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Pueblo District 70 school board member Anne Ochs abruptly announced her resignation during a board meeting Tuesday evening after a district parent called her out for helping quietly bring what’s been billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school” into the district.

Hannah McDowell, who has three children in district schools, spoke during the public comment period at the end of the meeting. She criticized Ochs for keeping key information about the school, Riverstone Academy, from the public.

McDowell also expressed concern that Ochs failed to disclose she’d already signed a contract to work for Riverstone’s authorizer, Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or ERBOCES, when she voted in June to allow the school to open within district boundaries.

Pueblo School District 70 board member Anne Ochs.

McDowell said she learned about it from news coverage and cited details reported exclusively by Chalkbeat. She handed out copies of Chalkbeat stories and other documents to Ochs and the other Pueblo 70 board members after she spoke.

“Ms. Ochs, your lack of transparency and misleading statements are beyond disappointing,” she said. “Your constituents should not have to learn about a serious conflict of interest from a news article months after the fact.”

Colorado’s ‘first public Christian school’ violated health and safety rules, documents show

McDowell then asked Ochs, who was first elected in 2021 and has two years left in her current term, to resign. Ochs had been the president of the five-member board until a new president was selected at Tuesday’s meeting.

After McDowell’s three-minute statement, Ochs responded angrily.

“First off, I didn’t start with ERBOCES until July 1,” she said. “Secondly, I have to work for a living and this had nothing to do with Riverstone. I don’t work with Riverstone. I didn’t even know about Riverstone being one of the programs.”

Ochs finished by saying, “You know what? You’re getting your wish come true, because I was planning on resigning anyway. I’m done.”

Ochs’ announcement was met with a “thank you” from the audience and a smattering of applause.

Ochs then stood up, closed her laptop, and walked out of the board room. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Ochs emailed a short resignation letter to the board and district superintendent on Wednesday morning.

“This decision has not been an easy one, but due to increasing time constraints and personal commitments, I am no longer able to devote the level of attention and energy that the students, staff, and community deserve,” she wrote.

Ochs said in the letter, obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request, that her resignation is effectively immediately.

Riverstone opened with about 30 K-5 students in August, in a light industrial area just outside Pueblo city limits. Its website describes it as a public elementary school offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum, but its religious affiliation wasn’t widely known until early October.

That’s when the head of the public education cooperative that authorizes Riverstone publicly declared it the state’s first public Christian school. The next day, the state warned that it could withhold public funding from the school because the state constitution doesn’t allow religious public schools.

In November, Chalkbeat obtained an email suggesting that Riverstone was created to spur a lawsuit over the question of whether public money can be used for religious schools. The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue in April.

The email came from Brad Miller, a lawyer who represents District 70 and ERBOCES. When he sent it on June 4, Ochs quickly responded saying the Pueblo 70 board would discuss putting the issue on the agenda, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

But when the board voted in late June to allow Riverstone to open within district boundaries, Ochs didn’t publicly mention that Riverstone was a Christian school or that it was meant to spur a legal test case.

When asked in October by Chalkbeat if she’d known about Riverstone’s religious affiliation when she voted on it, Ochs first said no. The next day, she called back and said she knew the school planned to use Christian curriculum, but added, “to me that doesn’t make it a religious school.”

Ochs also acknowledged in October that she’d started a job with ERBOCES in July, but indicated that she’d interviewed for the position after the June vote on Riverstone.

But McDowell, the district parent who spoke Tuesday, said that Ochs signed the contract for her new job on June 9. That was two weeks before the June 24 Riverstone vote, according to a copy of the contract reviewed by Chalkbeat.

This story has been updated with information about Ochs’ resignation letter.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Catholic preschools appeal to Supreme Court in Colorado case over LGBTQ rights and religious liberty

2025-11-14T23:46:34+00:00

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Two Denver-area Catholic parishes asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to reconsider a lower court decision that said parish preschools participating in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program couldn’t deny admission to LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.

The appeal to the Supreme Court comes about six weeks after the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Catholic parishes, which had argued that enrolling children from LGBTQ families would conflict with their religious beliefs.

Gov. Jared Polis lauded the circuit court’s Sept. 30 ruling, which was a major win for the state.

If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, the justices could answer a question at the heart of the case: Can private religious schools that accept public education dollars refuse to enroll certain kids based on religious principles? The state and two lower courts have said no. The Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority, could give a different answer.

A spokesperson for Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which runs the state-funded preschool program, said officials won’t comment on pending or active litigation.

They asked for an exemption from state rules banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but the Colorado Department of Early Childhood refused. The two preschools never joined the program, and in August 2023, the parishes that ran the preschools sued the state.

Of more than 2,000 preschools participating in Colorado’s universal preschool program this year, about 40 are religious.

Attorneys from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Catholic preschools in the case, have argued that Colorado is discriminating against the preschools based on religion.

“Colorado is picking winners and losers based on the content of their religious beliefs,” Nick Reaves, senior counsel at Becket, said in a press release Friday.

The release suggests that Colorado’s rules barring discrimination have hurt Catholic preschool enrollment.

Since universal preschool began, “enrollment at Catholic preschools has swiftly declined, while two Catholic preschools have shuttered their doors, including one that predominantly served low-income and minority families,” the press release said.

Wellspring, one of two parish preschools involved in the case, did close last year when the K-8 school it was part of closed because of low enrollment and financial problems. A Catholic preschool in Denver also shuttered when the K-8 school it was part of — Guardian Angels Catholic School — closed at the end of the 2024-25 school year. At the time the Archdiocese of Denver announced the closure of Wellspring and Guardian Angels, it also announced the consolidation of two Catholic high schools into one campus.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Christian law firm’s search for test case led to religious public school in Colorado, emails suggest

2025-11-12T20:08:19+00:00

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A prominent conservative law firm looking for a test case on whether public money can fund religious schools was the impetus for what’s been billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” according to an email obtained by Chalkbeat.

In the June 4 email, Pueblo County School District 70 attorney Brad Miller wrote to the district’s school board and superintendent seeking permission for a public education cooperative he also represents to open a school with about 30 students within district boundaries.

Miller wrote that the cooperative would then work with Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based group involved in high-profile conservative legal causes, to test “the legalities around the issue of whether a public school may provide religious education.”

On June 24, the school board signed off on Riverstone Academy, allowing it to operate within the southern Colorado district’s boundaries for five years. In August, the school, which describes itself as offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum, opened quietly in an industrial zone in Pueblo County with about 30 elementary students.

Miller explained in that June email that Alliance Defending Freedom had hosted him when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about whether a Catholic charter school could open in Oklahoma.

“The case resulted in a 4-4 tie and so the question did not get answered,” Miller wrote. “ADF asked me if I could find a way for a parallel case to be initiated out of Colorado.”

In the email, Miller portrayed Pueblo 70’s role as minimal.

“We would anticipate that this will create a surge of public attention at a point in time,” he wrote. “But it would not be anything for which the district will have any participation.”

Neither Miller nor Alliance Defending Freedom responded to requests for comment for this story. Quin Friberg, Riverstone’s executive director, also didn’t respond.

Colorado has said it may withhold public funding

Friberg and Riverstone’s authorizer, Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Education services, or ERBOCES, have said the school offers quality educational programming the community wanted. Ken Witt, executive director of ERBOCES, also argued that previous Supreme Court cases require Colorado to fund the school just like other public schools. That’s despite a state constitutional provision that bars public funding for religious schools.

The June 4 email suggests Miller knew and had informed Pueblo 70 board members that Riverstone would be testing the existing limits of church-state separation. It also suggests that the school’s opening is part of a larger legal strategy to further expand public funding for religious education in the aftermath of the Oklahoma Catholic charter school case.

This ‘public Christian school’ opened quietly in Colorado. Now there could be a legal fight.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which describes its mission as “grounded in the historic Christian tradition,” has been involved in more than a dozen successful Supreme Court cases. That includes the Trinity Lutheran case, the first in a series of decisions that expanded public funding for religious private schools. The law firm then applied that same reasoning to argue for public funding for religious charter schools.

After the Oklahoma Catholic charter case ended in a tie that blocked the school from opening, observers have expected another test case to emerge. A recently proposed Jewish charter school in Oklahoma would reignite the same legal arguments.

Riverstone Academy could also provide a test case.

In October, Colorado education officials warned ERBOCES, the school authorizer, that the state may withhold public funding from the school. If the state follows through and the school or ERBOCES sue, it could set up the legal test case that Miller’s email referenced.

When asked by Chalkbeat in October if Riverstone’s opening was meant to spark a legal test case, Witt said, “If a legal contest is required, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Witt said by email on Monday he hadn’t seen Miller’s June email to Pueblo 70 officials, but that he has profound respect for Alliance Defending Freedom’s work.

“Education reEnvisioned would welcome their assistance were there related litigation, which there is not at this time,” he wrote.

Religion wasn’t discussed when school was approved

Most public officials involved in Riverstone’s opening didn’t respond to Chalkbeat’s request for comment about Miller’s email. Miller hung up quickly Monday when Chalkbeat reached him by phone. He did not respond to a follow-up email. Miller represents several Colorado school districts that have taken conservative positions on various culture war issues.

Lis Richard, the president of the ERBOCES board, didn’t respond to Chalkbeat messages. Neither did Pueblo 70 Superintendent Ronda Rein or school board members A.J. Wilson, John Christenson, Cathleen Culhane Howland, and Chris DeLuca.

Pueblo 70’s school board was the only elected body that voted on Riverstone. Although BOCES like Education reEnvisioned are allowed to open public schools under state law, they must get the consent of the school district where the school will be located if the district is not a member of the BOCES. Pueblo 70 is not a member of ERBOCES.

The five members of the ERBOCES board, who are appointed not elected, also voted to approve the school, according to board meeting minutes.

At two June school board meetings where the Pueblo 70 board considered letting Riverstone open within district boundaries, neither board members nor Rein mentioned that the school would be religious or that it was intended to prompt a lawsuit.

The school’s religious affiliation wasn’t widely known until Witt, the ERBOCES leader, publicly declared that Riverstone was Colorado’s “first public Christian school” in October.

Shortly after that announcement, Pueblo 70 school board president Anne Ochs told Chalkbeat she hadn’t known it would be a religious school when she voted to approve it. The next day, she called back and said she knew the school planned to use Christian curriculum, but added, “to me that doesn’t make it a religious school.”

When Miller sent his June 4 email to the Pueblo 70 school board, an email exchange obtained by Chalkbeat shows Ochs replied to Miller four minutes later. “Thank you for the information,” she wrote. “We will discuss putting this on the June 24th agenda.”

Ochs started a job with Education reEnvisioned BOCES in July, shortly after the board’s Riverstone vote. Contacted this week about Miller’s email and her response, Ochs said:

“My constituents voted me in, and they wanted me in. I don’t get paid for this position. This is an elected position. I make my votes depending on what I feel is right.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Is this Christian school public or private? The answer has financial and legal implications.

2025-10-29T23:00:49+00:00

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Riverstone Academy, a new school in southern Colorado, has been billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school” by its authorizer. Its website calls it a public elementary school.

But some state and county officials say Riverstone is a private school — a designation that means different rules on everything from fire and building inspections to funding and student achievement.

Riverstone’s murky status could become a key factor in a potential legal fight over whether the state will fund the school, as Riverstone’s backers want. Public schools in Colorado are entitled to state education funding but private schools are not.

The school, in leased space just outside Pueblo city limits, has four classrooms and just over 30 students. It first garnered headlines and sparked consternation among state education officials in early October. That’s when Ken Witt, the leader of the group that authorized the school, declared at a public meeting that Riverstone is Colorado’s “first public Christian school.”

The news caught some elected officials and members of the public by surprise, because Riverstone opened quietly with no reference to its religious affiliation in at least three key start-up documents, Chalkbeat found. Riverstone’s website says the school offers a “Christian foundation” and mentions Christian curriculum.

On Oct. 10, the day after Witt’s declaration, the Colorado Department of Education threatened to withhold public funding from the school in a letter to Witt’s group, Education reEnvisioned BOCES. The group, based near Colorado Springs, is one of 21 Boards of Cooperative Educational Services in the state.

Will this ‘public Christian school’ spur the next big legal fight over religion in education?

Witt said repeatedly in a recent interview with Chalkbeat that Riverstone is a public school because it is authorized by a BOCES, which are allowed to authorize public schools under Colorado law, and has a school code from the Colorado Department of Education.

Information about Riverstone being characterized as a private school in certain situations emerged after Chalkbeat requested information from the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department about the school’s location on Aspen Circle. The area is zoned “light industrial,” a designation that permits a variety of businesses, including marijuana operations, warehouses, and freight depots, but not elementary schools.

Carmen Howard, the department’s director, confirmed by email this week that the property occupied by the school is not in compliance with county zoning regulations but did not answer follow up questions about whether the school can continue operating there.

“Our department is working through the standard process to bring the property into compliance under the County’s Unified Development Code,” she wrote. “Because this is an active zoning case, we’re limited in what we can share, but we can confirm that the use as it’s currently operating is not permitted at that location.”

On Wednesday, Howard noted by email that the department considers the school private based on information “from Riverstone.” In November, Pueblo County commissioners will consider a proposal to allow private schools in light industrial zones.

Quin Friberg, Riverstone’s executive director, said by text that the school is run by a private organization via a contract with a public entity, “so when talking with zoning they said for their purposes it would be considered private.”

“We have also been working since July to get the zoning corrected and are optimistic that will happen soon,” he wrote. “There is a plan in place that everyone has agreed to in order to resolve the issue.”

He didn’t respond to follow-up questions from Chalkbeat about the plan.

Chalkbeat also inquired about Riverstone’s status with the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention & Control, which typically oversees building code and fire code compliance for public schools.

An unsigned email from the division’s public information office on Wednesday said, “Riverstone Academy is being deemed a private school” and referred questions to local officials in Pueblo County.

Officials have different takes on Riverstone’s Christian affiliation

Riverstone came about through an unusual arrangement involving Education reEnvisioned BOCES, two nonprofit groups, and two school districts 60 miles apart. Unlike most public schools, which typically take more than a year to plan and open, Riverstone was proposed and launched within months.

The first day of school was Aug. 11, less than three months after a tie at the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the nation’s first religious charter school from opening in Oklahoma. Lawyers in that case argued not that Oklahoma should fund religious public schools, but that charter schools aren’t really public. Instead they described them as semi-private entities, more like a nonprofit that contracts with the state to provide a service.

Many observers expect advocates for publicly funded religious education to find a new test case, one where Amy Coney Barrett, who recused herself from the Oklahoma case, could cast a potentially decisive vote.

It’s not clear if Riverstone will become that test, but its backers have forcefully pushed back against the Colorado Department of Education’s argument that public schools can’t be religious.

Witt said in an Oct. 21 letter to the department that he was “alarmed at the threat” to Riverstone’s funding, and that not funding the school because of its religious affiliation would amount to religious discrimination.

Along with mixed messages about whether Riverstone is public or private, there are still questions about whether public officials who had a hand in allowing the school to open knew it was a religious school.

Asked if she knew of Riverstone’s Christian affiliation before she voted to approve a contract with the school, Lis Richard, president of the Education reEnvisioned BOCES, first said she was puzzled by Chalkbeat’s question.

“Every public school and district in the state of Colorado has a ‘Christian’ affiliation by the shear (sic) fact that there are Christians who attend their schools an (sic) serve in their district,” she wrote by email.

Asked if she was aware that Riverstone planned to offer a “Christian foundation” and “Christian curriculum,” she said she was.

But Anne Ochs, president of the Pueblo District 70 school board, said she didn’t consider Riverstone a religious school when her board voted in June to approve an agreement that would allow the school to open within district boundaries.

She said she knew the school planned to use Christian curriculum, but “to me that doesn’t make it a religious school.”

Ochs said she took a job with Education reEnvisioned BOCES in July, but had not yet interviewed for the position when she voted to approve the Riverstone agreement.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

This ‘public Christian school’ opened quietly in Colorado. Now there could be a legal fight.

2025-10-22T01:53:22+00:00

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A group that authorized what its leader called Colorado’s “first public Christian school” told the state education department Tuesday that it would be unconstitutional to deny the school state funding.

The school, called Riverstone Academy, opened quietly in southern Colorado this August, just months after a tie at the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the nation’s first religious charter school from opening in Oklahoma.

Riverstone Academy’s website describes a tuition-free public elementary school that “blends strong academics with classical values, hands-on trade-based learning, and a Christian foundation.”

Riverstone Academy's Facebook page cites the school's "Christian Foundation."

But Colorado’s constitution requires that public schools be nonsectarian — meaning not religious — and the Colorado Department of Education is pushing back. Department officials have suggested that Riverstone students may not be eligible for public funding. The school’s backers said they are “alarmed at the threat” and that not funding the school would amount to religious discrimination.

If the disagreement were to end up in court, the outcome of any legal challenge likely would turn as much on the bureaucratic details of how Riverstone Academy is organized and authorized as on larger constitutional questions of religious freedom. And Riverstone Academy likely won’t be the last case to test the boundaries between church and state and the evolving definition of a public school.

“The people who want to tear down the wall of separation between church and state are going to keep pushing these issues because they think they have a sympathetic audience in the current Supreme Court,” said Steven Green, a law professor at Willamette University who specializes in church-state issues.

Few mentions of school’s Christian character in paperwork

Riverstone Academy opened this fall and has just over 30 students occupying four classrooms in a leased space just outside Pueblo city limits. It was authorized by Education reEnvisioned BOCES. The group is one of the state’s 21 Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, which offer services such as special education to member school districts.

Riverstone Academy includes four classrooms and a few offices.

Riverstone exists due to an unusual arrangement involving the authorizer, two nonprofit groups, and two school districts 60 miles apart. Unlike most public schools, which typically take more than a year to plan and open, Riverstone was proposed and launched within months.

Quin Friberg, Riverstone’s executive director, said the school is meant to serve local families who seek an education that “feels like private school but doesn’t cost like private school.”

“I mean that in the sense of smaller classrooms, the religious element, and … we have an emphasis on kind of hands-on [activities],” he said.

Quin Friberg is the executive director of both Riverstone Academy and Forging Education.

Over the summer, BOCES authorized the school and contracted with Riverstone Academy, a new nonprofit Friberg heads, to run it. Riverstone subcontracted with a two-year-old Christian education nonprofit called Forging Education, which Friberg also leads, to help run the school.

District 49, which is based near Colorado Springs, is one of the two school districts that belong to the Education reEnvisioned BOCES and serves as the groups’ fiscal agent. An hour south is Pueblo District 70, which is not part of the BOCES but approved an agreement to allow Riverstone to open within its boundaries.

References to the school’s Christian character are absent or muted in Riverstone’s application materials and contracts. An application for a school code submitted to the state in late June makes no mention of Riverstone’s religious nature. It also went unmentioned in the agreement approved by the Pueblo 70 school board in late June and in the contract between the school and the BOCES approved by the BOCES board in August.

Friberg said Riverstone wasn’t hiding anything, but that the school’s religious foundation wasn’t a relevant response to questions on some of the documents.

Unlike the Oklahoma Catholic school at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court case, Riverstone is not a charter school. Rather, both the BOCES and the Colorado education department have referred to it as a “contract school,” a term that’s not defined in state law.

Ken Witt, executive director of the BOCES, said Riverstone is a public school because it was authorized by the BOCES, and the application went through the BOCES’ normal review process.

“It was a quality educational program that they were describing,” he said. “And we said, [the] U.S. Constitution and federal law says you don’t discriminate based on religion, so we are not going to discriminate based on religion.”

State officials warn that religious public schools are not allowed

Although the first day of school at Riverstone was Aug. 11, state officials didn’t address its Christian affiliation until two months later.

That’s when Witt described Riverstone as “Colorado’s first public Christian school” near the end of a routine 12-minute update about his group’s programming at a District 49 school board meeting on Oct. 9.

“We’re delighted that they came to us and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to operate this school,’” he told the board.

He then cited a 2020 Supreme Court decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which found that states could not exclude religious schools from private school voucher programs.

Witt has long been involved in the Colorado education world, frequently championing conservative positions, including expanded school choice. He was recalled from the Jeffco school board in 2015 following anger over proposed changes to the district’s AP U.S. history curriculum and other issues. In March, Witt resigned as superintendent of the Woodland Park school district.

The BOCES contract with Riverstone states that “The School shall constitute a public school in Colorado” and be subject to all applicable state laws. But it also describes Riverstone as “a provider of educational services at the School” and says Riverstone “is not itself a ‘public school.’”

At the Oct. 9 meeting, one member of the District 49 school board, which leans conservative, expressed alarm after Witt’s briefing on Riverstone.

“Eroding that separation of church and state is very concerning, and for us to be a partner in that … does not sit well with me,” board member Mike Heil said.

Board president Lori Thompson immediately responded, “Just a note of clarification, separation of church and state is not contained in the United States Constitution.”

“Separation of church and state” commonly refers to the First Amendment’s prohibition on government-established religion, but the actual phrase does not appear in the Constitution.

The day after the board meeting, the Colorado Department of Education sent a letter to District 49 and Education reEnvisioned BOCES warning that religious public schools are not permitted under the Colorado Constitution.

The Gazette first reported on the Oct. 9 board meeting and the education department letter.

On Tuesday, District 49 sent a statement to Chalkbeat indicating that district officials will request funding for Riverstone students and let the education department and the BOCES “have appropriate dialogue about eligibility.”

Also on Tuesday, Witt responded to the Colorado Department of Education’s warning letter.

“The U.S. Constitution prohibits discrimination against Riverstone solely on account of its religious affiliation as such exclusion from a generally available governmental benefit would be unconstitutional,” his letter said in part.

A spokesperson for the education department said officials there are reviewing that letter.

Riverstone Academy is relying on a loan from Forging Education — not state money — to operate the school for the first several months.

When asked if he’s worried about the state withholding funding, Friberg said “I’ll just say we went in eyes wide open … on every implication of what we’re doing.”

Is Riverstone the next St. Isidore?

After Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself due to a long-standing friendship with an adviser to St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the Supreme Court justices tied 4-4. That meant the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that blocked the opening of a Catholic charter school remained intact.

The justices didn’t lay out their thinking, leaving open questions about where the line is. But if Riverstone Academy’s backers say it’s a public school, it might not be a good candidate for such a test, Green and others said.

The trio of cases that have redrawn the line between church and state — Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and Carson — all involve a religious entity being denied access to a benefit that was available to the general public or to secular entities.

Those conditions don’t apply to public schools. Lawyers in the St. Isidore case argued not that Oklahoma should fund religious public schools, but that charter schools aren’t really public.

“A public school cannot be religious,” said Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “The government cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, fund a religious school directly. That’s as established as it gets.”

Riverstone opened without much public scrutiny

BOCES generally operate less publicly and less transparently than many school districts.

Education reEnvisioned BOCES doesn’t record its meetings, and some recent board agendas and minutes are not posted online because the group is revamping its website, Witt said. As is true of other BOCES, Education reEnvisioned board members are not elected by the public, but rather appointed by school districts or colleges that are BOCES members or by BOCES board members.

Originally launched under a different name in 2013, the BOCES authorizes several online and bricks and mortar schools as well as more than 50 homeschool enrichment programs around the state.

Last May, Riverstone Academy submitted a new school application to the BOCES.

In June, the BOCES asked the Pueblo 70 school board to approve an agreement allowing Riverstone to open in the district. During a June 10 board discussion of the agreement, which doesn’t mention that the school is Christian, one board member asked Superintendent Ronda Rein if she had anything to share about the school.

She said the school would have 30 students, then said, “That’s really all the information that I have at this point.”

Neither Rein nor any of the district’s five board members responded to messages from Chalkbeat asking if they knew about Riverstone’s religious foundation prior to agreeing to let it open in the district.

Witt said the BOCES didn’t conceal the school’s Christian affiliation in conversations with Pueblo District 70 leaders.

District 49’s school board wasn’t involved in Riverstone’s authorization. However, if the state eventually agrees to fund the school, the money would pass first to District 49, then the BOCES, and then Riverstone.

A copy of Riverstone’s application, provided to Chalkbeat by Witt, makes only one mention of Christian features in a paragraph about science instruction. It notes the use of a curriculum called Berean Builders offering “a Christian worldview in their exploration of scientific topics.” A paragraph about social studies instruction mentions Master Books, but doesn’t say it’s a Christian home school curriculum.

Witt said BOCES board members were aware of the school’s religious affiliation when they approved it in August. The minutes for that meeting are not posted online.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Religious opt-outs could complicate new Bible-infused state curriculum in Texas

2025-07-17T20:05:46+00:00

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Pam Little describes herself as Christian and conservative. The proud fifth-generation Texan is no fan of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But when the Texas State Board of Education approved a new curriculum last November that draws heavily on biblical material for elementary language arts and reading instruction, Little voted against it. She supports the teaching of biblical values in school, and her objections to Bluebonnet Learning are primarily pedagogical. But Little says some of the lessons that include extended passages directly from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Book of Genesis simply go “too far.”

“This is a sort of no-man’s land that we’re in,” Little said in an interview. “We’ve never had instructional materials that have had this much religious content.”

Some Christian conservatives might not share her concerns. But Texans from a range of religious faiths, including other Christians, raised objections to Bluebonnet throughout the adoption process. A recent Supreme Court decision gives new standing to parents who have religious objections to classroom material and could complicate attempts by states to include more religious content in public school instruction.

In a 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the court upheld the right of parents in a Maryland school district to opt their children out of lessons involving LGBTQ characters and themes that don’t align with their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court’s ruling laid the groundwork for a constitutional right for parents to opt their children out of classroom instruction that potentially conflicts with their religious faith.

Opt-out policies have traditionally been championed by conservative groups, including some of the very same groups in Texas that support Bluebonnet. Emboldened by the Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling, conservative groups are encouraging more parents to ensure their districts let them opt their kids out of LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. But efforts in Republican-led states such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana to infuse more religious content in public instruction — including biblical lessons and requirements to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms — are spurring a wider range of parents to express religious objections.

School districts aren’t required to use Bluebonnet, but adoption comes with additional state funds. The Texas Education Agency, which developed the curriculum, has provided little guidance to school districts that have adopted Bluebonnet, but told Chalkbeat that districts “must follow the law” regarding opt-outs.

The Mahmoud ruling doesn’t fundamentally alter relevant Texas law. Since the mid-1990s, state law has allowed families to exempt their child from instruction that conflicts with a family’s religious or moral beliefs. But parents can’t opt their children out of entire semesters worth of learning, and Bluebonnet’s religious content is deeply interwoven throughout the elementary school curriculum.

Texas education officials and supporters of the curriculum maintain that Bluebonnet Learning is not a religious curriculum. The Biblical references are designed to help students understand literature, history, politics, and culture, they say.

While they support parents’ rights to opt their children out of classroom instruction, supporters see Bluebonnet as fundamentally different from the LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum at the heart of Mahmoud v. Taylor.

Those LGBTQ-themed books, they say, are inherently “ideological” and encourage kids to accept ideas that go against their religion’s teachings. By contrast, learning about the story of the Good Samaritan exposes children to an important cultural touchstone and teaches universal virtues of kindness and tolerance, Bluebonnet supporters say.

“I, for one, cannot understand why any parent living in the greatest country that’s ever existed in the world would not want their child to understand the foundations, the historical references that are included in the Bluebonnet curriculum,” said Mandy Drogin, an education expert with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank involved with the curriculum’s development.

Parents and administrators are navigating how public schools promote shared values in a diverse and polarized society. Whether to opt out of lessons can feel high stakes and personal, and it can involve a lot of work for parents.

Sikh parents and community members fear that Bluebonnet will leave children feeling even more isolated than they do now, said Upneet Kaur, the senior education manager at the Sikh Coalition, which is working with Sikh parents in Texas who are concerned about Bluebonnet.

“Sikhs already have a very large amount of bullying that they face in classrooms due to a lack of understanding that students and educators may have of their identity,” Kaur said.

Do Bible references promote religion or cultural literacy?

Bluebonnet Learning was developed by the Texas Education Agency to reduce teacher workload and offset district costs. Its materials include readers, classroom activities, and evaluative material for grades K-5 in reading language arts, as well as math instruction.

The curriculum has attracted controversy for its usage of religious references throughout lessons that are aligned with state standards. A kindergarten reading lesson on sequencing asks students to order the days described in the Book of Genesis. A fifth grade art lesson on Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper directly cites the Book of Matthew.

School districts across Texas are now in the process of deciding whether to adopt materials from Bluebonnet Learning for the upcoming school year. Those that do will get an extra $60 per student.

The Texas Education Agency maintains that “there is no religious instruction in Bluebonnet Learning.” Supporters contend that religious references are part of a model of classical education that is intended to provide students with the cultural literacy to better understand American history and literature.

For example, fifth grade reading material on Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail asks students to also read the Book of Daniel, which King cites in his letter to justify the practice of civil disobedience in response to white Christian clergymen who criticized the nonviolent protests.

“It’s about informing children to be a well-rounded Texan, to be a well-rounded American, it’s important that they have some sort of context of these culturally significant stories,” Drogin said. “You can’t understand the Letter from the Birmingham Jail if you don’t have a biblical understanding.”

But Little, the state board member, who previously worked in educational publishing, said that “Bluebonnet Learning misses the whole point of his letter and it bothers me that it just talks about his faith in Christianity and that’s not what his letter was about. His letter is telling white Christian people to get up and start to help.”

Bluebonnet lesson materials ask students to compare the biblical story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to Martin Luther King Jr.’s arrest in Birmingham.

Critics contend that Bluebonnet’s references to the Bible are treated as historical fact and are cited more often than religious texts from other belief systems.

Students could get the impression “that Christianity is the only religion that is worth knowing about,” said David Brockman, a scholar at Rice University’s Baker Institute’s Religion and Public Policy Program.

Lisa Epstein, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of San Antonio, said some Jewish parents could construe certain Bluebonnet lessons as “obstructing or interfering with their right to the moral and religious [upbringing] of their child” and may wish to opt their children out of them.

Writing for the majority In the Mahmoud ruling, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito affirmed families’ freedom to remove their child from “instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.”

On its website, Texas Values, an organization that advocates for biblical values in Texas government, cites the ability for parents to opt out as one reason districts should feel comfortable adopting Bluebonnet.

But in an interview, Mary Elizabeth Castle, the director of government relations at Texas Values, said she hopes parents don’t go that route.

“It would be unfortunate if a parent were to opt their child out of these lessons merely because of these biblical references when there’s a lot more that is covered in the material and actually is supposed to help students excel,” Castle said.

Parents face challenges exercising their opt-out rights

Despite existing state law, opt-outs in Texas happen infrequently, said Kevin Brown, executive director of Texas Association of School Administrators and a former superintendent.

“The overwhelming majority of parents will never opt out and a lot of parents who may even have different religious beliefs are going to say: The school’s going to deliver its standard curriculum and we’re going to raise our kids at home like we see fit,” said David DeMatthews, a professor of educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas and the director of the Cooperative Superintendency Program.

But it’s possible the Mahmoud ruling will disrupt that pattern by raising awareness of opt-out policies, said Rocío Fierro Pérez, political director of the Texas Freedom Network, who has been working with families to understand their opt-out rights.

Due to a recently passed state law that also bans all practices deemed to rely on DEI in schools, Texas school districts soon will be required to inform parents about their parental rights and provide parents a copy of their instructional plan at the beginning of each semester.

Even so, actually exercising those rights is a different matter, advocates say.

Bluebonnet Learning includes Family Support Letters to be sent home in English and Spanish before each unit, giving parents the chance to reach out to teachers if there is content they may want to opt out of. Yet critics say these letters consistently understate the role of Christianity in the curriculum, making it hard for parents to make an informed decision.

The Family Support Letter for a reading language arts unit that includes a lesson on sequencing where students are expected to order the days in the Book of Genesis only briefly mentions the biblical materials in the curriculum.

“Parents don’t have the opportunity or time to really sit there and parse through all of that material, especially for all the different grade levels,” said Kaur of the Sikh Coalition.

Language barriers are also an overlooked issue when it comes to opt outs.

While in middle school in Texas, Kaur remembers awkwardly translating her sexual education opt-in forms for her parents, who spoke Punjabi. “To see that ten years later not much has changed says a lot about the process,” she said.”

Trung Huynh, a Buddhist monk and adjunct professor of religious studies at the University of Houston, is creating bilingual opt-out forms for parents in his Buddhist community. He said they are wary of their children being taught biblical lessons, but are often too busy with work and lack the English fluency to advocate for exemptions.

School districts lack clear plans for parent opt-outs

Teachers “haven’t been given any direction” for dealing with opt-out requests associated with Bluebonnet according to Malissa Martin, a Texas teacher who switched from teaching literacy to math in opposition to the decision by Conroe Independent, her suburban Houston district, to adopt Bluebonnet Learning.

She’s unsure whether teachers will be expected to shoulder the burden of finding replacement materials for students who have opted out of certain content. Some teachers she knows aren’t even fully aware of the district’s opt-out policies.

Some districts are only planning to adopt materials that do not include religious references. When the South San Antonio Independent School District adopted Bluebonnet, Superintendent Saul Hinojosa told a local news outlet that the district plans to remove any content that is “inappropriate” or presents a religious point of view.

But because religious references are used to teach basic literacy skills, revising the curriculum will be far more complicated than simply excising those portions of the curriculum. And doing so could burden districts who originally turned to the free statewide curriculum to offset teacher workload and curriculum costs.

“I think it’s going to be hard for school districts to figure out how students can opt out of religious learning that their parents don’t want them to have with the Bluebonnet curriculum because it’s so interwoven,” Little said.

Many district leaders haven’t had to spend much time on opt-out requests. But Bluebonnet, DeMatthews said, could “kind of throw fuel on an already burning polarization fire in our state.”

Norah Rami is a Dow Jones education reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah at nrami@chalkbeat.org.

Religious charter schools blocked after U.S. Supreme Court deadlocks

2025-05-22T22:55:09+00:00

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Religious charter schools will continue to be illegal after the U.S. Supreme Court tied 4-4 in a case that many observers considered one of the most consequential education cases in decades.

The deadlock means an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision that blocked the opening of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School stands. It also means that the thorny issues about church and state and about what constitutes a public school remain undecided by the high court.

Many charter school advocates cheered the outcome. They had feared a ruling in favor of the proposed religious charter school would upend charter laws in dozens of states and potentially lead to new restrictions on the sector.

Supporters of St. Isidore had argued that charter schools, which are publicly funded but independently run, are more like private entities that contract with the government. Not allowing for explicitly religious charter schools would amount to religious discrimination, they said.

But charter sector advocates have long held that they are public schools, and state laws describe them as such. The lack of a decision leaves the status quo unchanged.

“Today’s decision from the Supreme Court leaves the lower Court’s ruling in place and sends an important message: public charter schools are just that, public,” Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a statement. “This case may not be the last time the Court takes up the question of religious charter schools, but today’s outcome offers clarity for families and educators.”

The Supreme Court decision provided no arguments on either side and did not say which justices took which side. During oral arguments last month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed receptive to the idea of religious charter schools and uncertain that charter schools constitute “state actors” in a legal sense. But of the conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts seemed the most skeptical.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, setting the stage for the tie decision. She is close personal friends with Notre Dame law professor Nicole Stelle Garnett, who advised St. Isidore and authored an influential brief in favor of religious charter schools.

“Public schools remain public. That’s the headline,” said University of South Carolina law professor Derek Black. “This threatened to be the most consequential school case since Brown v. Board. We can breathe a sigh of relief and see if another case comes up.”

The St. Isidore case was the most recent in a string of Supreme Court cases that eroded the traditional line between church and state. In Carson v. Makin in 2022, the court ruled that states that have private school choice programs can’t exclude religious schools from participating. That case set the stage to consider religious charter schools.

While charter school supporters have always described them as part of the public school system, critics have charged that they represent a stepping stone toward privatization. Different lower court decisions have treated charter schools as more like private or more like public schools for matters of employment, student discipline, and open meetings laws.

Supporters of charter schools feared that a ruling that these schools were closer to private entities, and thus could be religious, would give fodder to critics and lead to intense backlash in blue states where charters have traditionally enjoyed broad support.

Some supporters of religious education believe charter status would inevitably erode the independence and faith-based character of religious schools. But others say parents who want this education for their children should have the same access to taxpayer-funded schools that public school families enjoy.

The prospect of public funding remains appealing for some religious schools, especially those serving low-income families or struggling with enrollment. A new school proposal could emerge to put the issue back in front of the Supreme Court.

“This case raised some novel issues involving the First Amendment’s religion clauses and could be resolved in several different ways,” said Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, in a statement. “With no majority and no separate opinions, we can’t know how the Justices wrestled with these different options. The issues raised here will likely return to the Court, perhaps in a case better suited for resolution.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Why national charter leaders are very worried about Oklahoma’s religious charter school

2025-04-28T19:39:43+00:00

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The case of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School could represent a seismic shift in American education.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa are seeking to open the nation’s first religious charter school, challenging traditional understandings of church and state as well as state laws that require charter schools to be secular.

But the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that the school was unconstitutional and that state authorities should not have granted St. Isidore a charter. Now the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the school can open.

The case is not just about whether public funds can support religious schools. Legally, the question at the heart of the St. Isidore case is: Are charter schools really public schools?

A finding that charter schools are private entities would require revisiting decades-old legal assumptions while giving rhetorical ammunition to the sector’s strongest critics. Charter supporters fear that public funds, their treasured autonomy, and perhaps even their existence are at risk.

“We could see a situation where almost every charter law has to be opened up and reconsidered and relegislated,” said Eric Paisner, chief operating officer for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in opposition to St. Isidore.

These publicly funded but independently run schools once enjoyed broad bipartisan support as an alternative to vouchers and other forms of private school choice. Charters have flourished in states whose constitutions clearly prohibit public funding for private schools. But while they remain popular with parents, the charter sector is increasingly embattled politically, especially in Democrat-led states.

That should not be a concern of the courts, said Nicole Stelle Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame University who laid out the legal blueprint for religious charter schools in an influential paper for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.

That state laws refer to charter schools as public schools has little bearing on their legal status, she said, and there’s a strong case to be made that they are private entities that contract with the government to provide a public good. If that’s true, denying taxpayer dollars to religious charter schools is simply discrimination, she said. And discrimination is bad and illegal.

“They are worried about the political blowback,” she said of charter leaders who want the high court to rule against St. Isidore. “Those are not legal arguments.”

Charter schools have a hybrid legal status

Minnesota passed the nation’s first charter school in 1991, just a year after the nation’s first voucher program launched in Milwaukee. Today there are roughly 8,000 charter schools in 46 states and the District of Columbia serving some 3.7 million students. State laws typically describe charter schools as public schools and require that they be nonsectarian — secular rather than religious.

These schools are funded by the state, they can’t charge tuition, they’re accountable to the government for student performance, and they generally can’t choose their students. They might be authorized by school districts, universities, or the state itself. Charters have withstood legal challenges in states that prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used at private schools, with courts finding that charters are public schools.

“Charter schools are public schools” is the automatic response supporters give to both critics and the merely confused who see them as something else, something halfway to a private school.

But charter schools also are exempt from many laws and regulations that govern district-run schools. They’re run by independent, unelected boards and often organized as non-profit entities. In some states, such as Michigan, even for-profit companies can run charter schools.

Charter schools themselves have argued — often successfully — that they are non-state actors when they need to defend personnel decisions or student discipline policies in court.

Most recently, a North Carolina charter school argued that its dress code, which required girls to wear skirts, could not violate the civil rights of its female students because it was not a state actor. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. North Carolina had delegated its educational function to the charter school, and the dress code had to go.

That school and other classical academies, along with the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools, has filed its own friend-of-the-court brief arguing that if charter schools are found to be government entities, that would expose them to lawsuits and regulations, “sanding off the edges of cultural and pedagogical difference until the schools are virtually indistinguishable from their public-school counterparts.”

“Charter schools have wanted to have it both ways, where they were public for matters that they like, like funding, and private for things that they may not like, for instance, teacher rights,” said Preston Green, a professor of education at the University of Connecticut who has written extensively about charter schools.

Is public education dead or just redefined? Author Cara Fitzpatrick on the history of school choice.

Now the debate about whether charter schools should be viewed as state actors — entities that act with the same authority as the government and are bound by the same constitutional limitations — is on a collision course with the Supreme Court’s evolving view of religious freedom.

For many years, the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment of religion was interpreted to mean public money could not fund religious institutions. More recently, though, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has found that denying public funding to religious organizations is a form of discrimination.

In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in Carson v. Makin that states that have private school choice programs cannot exclude religious schools from participation.

Oklahoma officials leaned heavily on that decision when, in 2023, they gave approval to St. Isidore of Seville to start a virtual Catholic charter school. Now the state’s charter authorizing board wants the Supreme Court to decide that St. Isidore charter school should be viewed as a privately owned and run school.

Many charter leaders fear fallout of St. Isidore ruling

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools argues that the Supreme Court could turn down St. Isidore without even touching the question of whether charter schools are state actors. Directly authorizing and funding a religious school would represent a state establishment of religion, their attorneys write, and is not comparable to giving parents money that they can choose to spend at religious or secular schools of their choice.

But if the court does take up the state actor question, the justices should find that charter schools are state actors, at least in this circumstance, they argue. Charter schools only exist because the government creates them.

“No school existed on June 5, 2023, then the State Board issued the charter at its meeting, and now there is a school,” the charter alliance brief says. “The resulting school, St. Isidore, is neither all church nor all state, but a blend of church and state.”

Democratic attorneys general and politicians from both parties who wrote some of the nation’s first charter laws have filed their own briefs, arguing that charter schools were conceived to solve problems within public education using public tools. Even the fact that charters are exempt from some laws and regulations is evidence that they are a function of state government.

Robert Reed, vice president of legal affairs for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, fears that some Democrat-led states, if forced to approve religious charter schools, would simply end their charter programs.

“Those states probably couldn’t stomach those types of schools,” he said.

Students make their way down the hall following a Mass celebrating Pomona Catholic High School's 125th anniversary in 2023. Catholic schools have struggled with financial sustainability and cultural changes in recent decades.

Where state constitutions bar funding private schools, a finding that charter schools are fundamentally private in nature might reopen the question of whether they can receive taxpayer dollars, Reed said. It could also prevent charter schools from using bond funds for facilities and lock charter teachers out of state pension systems.

Green doubts that policymakers and politicians will abandon charter schools, even in blue states.

“In a lot of Black and Latino communities, charter schools are very popular, and the separation [of church and state] issues may not resonate as much in these communities,” he said. “In a lot of communities, there is still going to be support for charter schools because they see them meeting needs that traditional public schools do not.”

But states that don’t want to authorize religious charters may need to change their laws to make charter schools more definitively public. In a recent paper, Green and University of Wisconsin-Madison education professor Suzanne Eckes draw on case law from other heavily regulated sectors, such as railroads, to suggest that having government-controlled boards would make it much harder to argue charters are private entities.

“If they want to be public, they may need to take steps to have more government control,” Green said.

But charter sector leaders fear that outcome as well. More government control “would turn charter schools into district-run schools, which was never the point,” Reed said.

Demand for religious charters uncertain

Garnett believes concerns about widespread impacts are overstated. The Supreme Court decision will turn on the specifics of Oklahoma’s laws and may not apply to all states or all charters. She doubts there will be a flood of applications from other religious organizations, and local and state governments still will have a say in which schools open.

“States can continue to apply all their secular criteria,” she said. “You have to have your disability plan and your proof-that-you’re-needed plan and whatever else the authorizer requires.”

But religious groups are watching the case closely. Already a group in Minnesota is hoping to open Abraham Knowledge Academy as an Islamic charter school with a focus on civic participation.

Religious charter schools used to feel like a “pie in the sky” idea, said Michael Petrilli of the center-right Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a way to offer parents more choices in states hostile to vouchers. But charter schools were public schools, and the combination didn’t seem legally workable.

“What has made this more inevitable in recent years is the courts’ own jurisprudence,” he said.

Some Catholic educators have argued against seeking charter status that would inevitably involve the government in theological questions. On the other side of the equation is access to public dollars. Catholic schools are under financial pressure as enrollment declines, and per-pupil funding would bring in more money than tuition.

Petrilli believes Catholic schools would struggle to resist public dollars or to explain to families why they should keep paying tuition.

A recent analysis by Shaun Dougherty, who directs the Catholic Education Research Initiative at Boston College, found that the opening of charter schools in cities contributed to the closure of nearby Catholic schools as families sought out free options that provided similar rigor.

But that doesn’t mean families would rush back. “There is a question about who the audience is,” Dougherty said. “The Catholic population has not gotten larger because of this case. It’s not clear to me that the appetite for charter enrollment is limitless.”

Petrilli finds himself personally torn now that religious charters could become reality. More litigation and legislative fights could lie on the other side of the St. Isidore case.

“I hope they say, ‘These schools are public schools,’ and we go about our way,” he said.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct university affiliation of Suzanne Eckes. She is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Supreme Court to rule on right of religious parents to opt kids out of LGBTQ material

2025-04-18T01:05:20+00:00

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When the devout Muslim parents of a second grader learned their son would be reading a story at school about a prince who falls in love with a knight, they asked to opt him out.

The story about a man who marries another man after they team up to vanquish a dragon went against their religious teachings, the parents said. They wanted an alternative assignment.

The book in question, “Prince & Knight,” was one of several books that Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools added to its English curriculum in 2022 as part of a district initiative to put more books featuring LGBTQ characters in elementary school classrooms.

At first, the second grader was allowed to sit outside the classroom during discussions of the book. But a few days later, the district’s school board decided parents could no longer opt their kids out, later citing the volume of opt-out requests. Teachers would also stop informing families when they used one of the LGBTQ-themed books in class.

Many parents spoke out against that decision. The second grader’s parents and other families sued Montgomery County Public Schools to reinstate the opt-out option. Two federal courts let the no opt-out policy stand. Now, the Supreme Court — with a conservative majority that’s likely to be sympathetic to the burgeoning parental rights movement — is set to weigh in. Oral arguments in the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, are scheduled for Tuesday. A decision is expected by June.

At the heart of the case is a longstanding tension between the power of parents to direct their children’s education and the authority of public schools to set their own curriculum. The high court’s ruling could decide whether parents have the right to opt their children out of any content that they see as at odds with their faith — and how far schools must go to accommodate them.

The case comes as Democrat-led states such as New Jersey, Illinois, and California have adopted curriculum that’s more inclusive, especially on topics of gender and sexuality. Meanwhile, Republican-led states like Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana have passed new laws that give parents more insight into what their kids are learning and the ability to opt out of certain lessons.

If the Supreme Court sides with the school district and decides parents don’t have the religious right to opt out, some say that could open the door to schools adopting curriculum without much regard for parent or community feedback. The views of minority parents, especially, could be ignored.

If the parents prevail, some worry schools would remove certain content altogether to lessen the chances of opt-out requests. That would be a set-back for schools and families that support efforts like those in the Montgomery County district to make curriculum more inclusive.

A ruling for the parents also could upend school operations, some legal and education experts say. It could force already stressed teachers and principals to send notifications, devise alternative assignments, and catch kids up if they miss other content during an opt-out.

“Do you have all the parents list out all the things that they believe at the start of the year, so you know and can tailor what you teach?” said Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at the University of Southern California who’s studied Americans’ views on opt-out policies. “It’s not hard to see how it could spiral out of control really quickly and really undermine the ability of public schools to perform their basic core function: teaching kids.”

Case centers on religious rights, LGBTQ inclusion

Several Montgomery County parents said in court filings that exposing their kids to the new books at school violated their right to free exercise of religion, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“Our son loves his teachers and implicitly trusts them,” wrote one second grader’s parents who follow Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox teachings. “Having them teach principles about sexuality or gender identity that conflict with our religious beliefs significantly interferes with our ability to form his religious faith.”

Lawyers for the parents say the books’ positive portrayals of LGBTQ characters and themes indirectly pressure kids to adopt that thinking. But they say what their parents want is different than laws like Florida’s that bar teaching about gender identity and sexual orientation in certain grades.

“Our parents aren’t asking for an LGBTQ-free classroom,” said Colten Stanberry, one of the attorneys at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who is representing the parents in the Supreme Court case. “They are not saying the books can’t be on the shelves. They are specifically challenging instruction,” such as reading the books in class and talking about them with teachers.

In a 2-1 ruling, a federal appeals court sided with the school district. Making kids read books that don’t align with their religious teachings is not a violation of families’ rights, they wrote, because they weren’t forced to change their beliefs or actions. Parents were still free to talk about the picture books with their children and teach them what they wanted, the judges wrote.

That interpretation follows how federal courts have ruled in other similar cases.

Montgomery County Public Schools officials have said they adopted the set of LGTBQ-inclusive books as part of a broader effort to make the district’s curriculum more culturally responsive with texts told from multiple viewpoints. The district is known for its racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, although that diversity hasn’t always equaled harmony.

Similar efforts, according to court documents, included the addition of books about the Black civil rights icon John Lewis and a novel about a Chinese-American immigrant family.

Teachers were expected to use the books as they would any other part of the curriculum. That could mean reading them aloud or putting them in classroom libraries, the district said in court filings.

The books were meant to teach critical reading skills and not for instruction explicitly about sexual orientation or gender identity, the district said.

In addition to “Prince & Knight,” the stories included “Pride Puppy!” an alphabet book for preschoolers and kindergartners about a dog that encounters various scenes at a Pride parade, and “My Rainbow,” in which a Black mother sews a colorful wig for her transgender daughter. And in “Love, Violet” a young girl worries about whether her same-sex crush will like the valentine she made her.

The children's book "Pride Puppy!" by Robin Stevenson follows a playful puppy through a Pride parade and the alphabet. Montgomery County Public Schools removed the book from classrooms after deciding it required instruction that went beyond a reading lesson.

The district also gave teachers guidance about how they could respond to potential questions or comments from students. If a student said being gay is wrong and not permitted in their religion, teachers could respond: “I understand that is what you believe, but not everyone believes that. We don’t have to understand or support a person’s identity to treat them with respect and kindness.”

In another instance, if a child asked about what it meant to be transgender, a teacher could say: “When we’re born, people make a guess about our gender and label us ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ based on our body parts. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong.”

Still, some parents and school leaders worried the books used unfamiliar words without defining them. Others questioned whether it was appropriate to show kids in romantic relationships, regardless of their sexual orientation. The district eventually pulled “Pride Puppy!” and “My Rainbow” from classrooms, the Washington Post reported, because kids may not have understood the texts without explicit instruction on vocabulary outside the bounds of the lesson.

“There’s reasonable discussions to be had about what’s age appropriate in curriculum,” Polikoff said. But, Polikoff, who is gay, said this case is more about: “Does acknowledging that gay people exist burden other people’s religious views? Where is the line here?”

How a ruling for the parents could affect schools

If the justices side with the parents in this case, it could give families “broad authority to request opt-outs along a wide array of different issues,” said Justin Driver, a constitutional law scholar and professor at Yale Law School.

If the teacher wants to give a pop quiz about a book most kids have read, they’d have to write a completely different test for kids who opted out, Driver said. Teachers could end up refereeing “dueling free exercise claims” from parents with opposing religious beliefs. Teachers would have to avoid stigmatizing children who’ve opted out, as well as children who see themselves in the content other kids are skipping.

Given past court decisions, it’s unlikely the justices would confine opt-outs to certain topics or student grade levels, Driver added.

“Just because some people may be uneasy with this sort of material today, it doesn’t mean that the federal judiciary should be commandeering local control over public schools,” said Driver, who co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Montgomery County Public Schools.

"Prince & Knight" by Daniel Haack tells the story of two men who battle a dragon and fall in love. Some Montgomery County parents objected to their kids reading about a gay relationship and marriage on religious grounds.

Glenn Branch, the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, has seen how this can play out.

Sometimes it’s easy for teachers to come up with alternative assignments. When parents object to their kids dissecting animals, Branch said, teachers can swap in a plastic or virtual model.

But when religious parents object to their kids learning about evolution, there really isn’t a substitute, Branch said. Evolution comes up so many times in biology class — from learning about the structure of a cell to taxonomy to genetics — that teachers would need “revolving doors” for kids to cycle in and out. That would be disruptive for their classmates, too.

“It would be kind of like saying: ‘Well, we’re not going to do fractions,’ in a math course,” Branch said.

Lawsuit’s supporters: Opt-out right isn’t burden on schools

Lawyers and scholars in the parents’ camp, meanwhile, say giving parents the right to opt out of certain content on religious grounds wouldn’t dramatically change public education.

Nearly all states permit opt-outs for sex ed or lessons on human sexuality, they note. Texas permits parents to opt their kids out of lessons on any topic for religious or moral reasons.

“A lot of school districts are, in fact, already doing what the parents are asking for here,” said Stanberry, the parents’ attorney.

Douglas Laycock, a constitutional law scholar and law professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and the University of Texas, said he did not expect schools to be flooded with opt-out requests. Laycock, who co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the parents, added that the topics parents will likely object to are predictable: sex and evolution.

If students skip broad swaths of the curriculum, that shouldn’t come without consequences, he said. For example, a student could opt out of evolution lessons, he said, but then “you can’t get credit for biology.”

Still, he can imagine a scenario in which schools get overloaded with parents’ opt-out requests.

“If you have large numbers of people demanding alternative assignments for lots of different parts of the curriculum, at some point it’s going to become unworkable,” he said. But if parents’ requests are limited to a smaller piece of the curriculum, as he believes they were in Montgomery County, schools should be able to make that work.

The reason the school district got so many opt-out requests, he added, is because the curriculum was age-inappropriate and lacked broad community support.

Stanberry, too, could imagine another case in which the school district’s responsibility to educate children — especially in core subjects like reading and math — could trump a parent’s religious right to skip that content.

“When it comes to matters that are particularly sensitive to religion, especially matters of human sexuality, gender identity,” he said, “that’s a place where parents should get to decide.”

Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.

Could religious charter schools upend American education? A Chalkbeat explainer.

2025-01-25T00:05:52+00:00

Editor’s Note: This story first published in 2023. Since then, the Oklahoma State Supreme Court rescinded the charter of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, and the school appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court agreed to hear this case in spring 2025.

For decades the phrase “private religious charter school” seemed like an oxymoron. Charter schools are deemed public by state law, and must be secular just like any other public school.

Now, there’s a burgeoning effort to change that. An Oklahoma state board just approved an application by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to run what would be the country’s first religious charter school. The move is a direct challenge to existing charter laws, which critics say discriminate against churches and other religious entities.

The prospect of religious charter schools threatens to upend American education, far beyond Oklahoma. If religious charter schools become a reality, they could rejuvenate religious education, particularly Catholic schools, which have been losing students for many decades. Such schools could continue the successful conservative campaign to allow more public funding to go to religious education. They could lead to fewer students, and thus less funding, for public schools. Charters of all types could be deemed private schools for legal purposes, reducing anti-discrimination protections for students and teachers.

This is a startling possibility. Charter schools have long enjoyed bipartisan support because they were seen as a compromise to private school vouchers. Advocates promoted charters as innovative options within the public sector. Leading national charter organizations maintain this view and oppose religious charter schools. But it’s not clear they will be able to keep a hold on their own movement.

The recent push for private religious charter schools is a sign of the shifting times. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has knocked down legal barriers to public money going to religious education. The bipartisan consensus around charter schools has weakened. Conservative education advocates are trying to limit certain instruction on race and gender, including by funding alternatives to public schools.

As yet, it’s unclear if a religious charter school will ever open — they still have to clear a dense thicket of legal issues. In Oklahoma, a coalition of groups has already filed suit to block the approved religious charter school. The broader issue could well reach the Supreme Court at some point.

Here’s what to expect and how we got to this point:

A string of recent Supreme Court decisions opened up new discussions of religious charter schools.

Charter schools were first created in Minnesota in 1991, and charter laws now exist in 45 states plus the District of Columbia. All of the laws, including Oklahoma’s, prohibit charter schools from offering religious instruction. (Some states allow religious organizations to run schools — but they have to remain secular in their operation.) So at present openly religious charter schools do not exist.

But for many years, legal scholars have raised the possibility of such schools, including a 2001 law review article titled: “Charter schools and religious institutions: A match made in heaven?” At first, this was just an academic discussion. Litigation focused on private schools.

In 2002, a divided Supreme Court ruled that public money may go to private religious schools through voucher programs. The majority emphasized that such funding was directed by parents, not by the government. More recently the court has gone further. Not only may religious schools get money, they must receive funding if other secular private schools are eligible, the court concluded in a string of cases culminating in a 2022 ruling. “The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools — so long as the schools are not religious,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the latest decision, Carson v. Makin. “That is discrimination against religion.”

These cases have not had far-reaching consequences because most states with voucher programs already allowed religious schools to participate. The rulings also did not speak to charter schools directly. But in one case Justice Stephen Breyer raised the issue in dissent. “What about charter schools?” he wrote, before pointing out that the court had no clear answer. Indeed some experts told Chalkbeat in 2022 that this would be the coming legal dispute. “Charter schools are the next frontier,” said Preston Green, a University of Connecticut professor.

That’s exactly what has happened. Some choice school advocates pointed out that the logic of these rulings might apply to charters. If a state cannot bar religious private schools from public support, why can it bar religious charter schools, they asked.

That was the case made by Nicole Stelle Garnett, a Notre Dame law professor, in an influential 2020 report for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Charter schools, she argued, “are effectively private schools and can be religious without running afoul” of the Constitution. In fact, the logic of the court’s decision suggested that “current laws prohibiting religious charter schools likely violate” the First Amendment’s guarantee of free religious exercise, Garnett concluded.

A Catholic charter school in Oklahoma won approval to open. A lawsuit has quickly followed.

Earlier this year, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma proposed a virtual charter school that would teach religious doctrine, just like a private Catholic school would. To craft the application, the church worked with Notre Dame law school’s Religious Liberty Initiative, including Garnett herself. “What state has the most ripe opportunity for religious charter schools? The answer for Notre Dame is Oklahoma,” Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, told the Tulsa World in February.

The idea was bolstered after the state’s former attorney general issued an opinion that Oklahoma’s ban on religious charters was likely unconstitutional. Highlighting the legal ambiguity, though, a new attorney general promptly withdrew that opinion.

In April, the proposed school was unanimously rejected by Oklahoma’s charter board, which cited legal uncertainty and a variety of other issues in the application. But the board narrowly approved it in June after the school submitted a revised application. Board members who supported the school said they believed that Oklahoma’s bar on religious charter schools is unconstitutional.

This sets up an inevitable legal fight since the decision clashes with state law. In July, groups that support strict separation of church and state filed a lawsuit seeking to block the opening of the proposed Oklahoma school.

“A school that claims to be simultaneously public and religious would be a sea change for American democracy,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing a public school that is run as a religious school.”

The question of religious charter schools may turn on whether charters are deemed public or private actors.

Since charter schools were formed, advocates have also insisted that they are public. Some groups, like the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, emphasize this in their names. State and federal law describes charter schools as public. Charter schools also operate in many ways like other public schools — they are funded by public dollars, they must be open to all students, they administer state exams, and they’re often required to comply with public records law. “There’s 101 reasons why they are state actors and none why they are not,” Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, previously told Chalkbeat.

But charter schools have always been a sort of public–private hybrid. After all, they are typically governed by private, nonprofit boards, which are not elected. (To form a school, these boards are awarded a performance contract or “charter” by an authorizer, which itself is usually a public body.) This ambiguity has put charter schools in a legal gray area. Are they public — “state actors,” in legal jargon — or private entities? Different courts have reached different conclusions, based on a complex legal doctrine.

If charter schools are public actors, then there is little question that they may not be religious. The First Amendment bars governmental establishment of religion, and the Supreme Court has said that public schools cannot conduct sponsored prayers.

But if charter schools are private, as advocates like Garnett argue, then there is a stronger case that they can be religious. Private schools are not limited by the First Amendment, which only applies to the government. Moreover the legal precedent in Carson v. Makin — which says that private choice programs must be open to religious and secular schools alike — would seem to apply to charters.

The public–private question is the “heart of the matter” in the religious charter debate, as the Oklahoma board’s legal counsel put it.

The Supreme Court recently declined to hear a case on whether charter schools are public or private actors.

The case turned on whether a North Carolina charter school could impose a dress code — banning pants for girls — that some parents believed to be sexist. A federal circuit court ruled for the parents, concluding that the school is a public state actor. The school, with the support of a number of conservatives, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Biden administration said that the circuit ruling should be allowed to stand.

In June, the Supreme Court agreed with the Biden administration and decided not to take the case. But this just adds more uncertainty since the court has still not weighed in on the legal status of charter schools. This question has divided lower courts. A similar case could emerge later.

“The issue will percolate and the Supreme Court will eventually hear a case,” predicted Green, the education law professor.

Leading charter school organizations oppose religious charter schools. Conservative groups are taking the other side.

Two major charter school associations oppose the possibility of religious charter schools and say charters should be considered public for legal purposes. They say that religious instruction is not consistent with the charter model. They also likely fear a political backlash if charters are considered private — a charge often leveled by critics.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools condemned Oklahoma’s approval of a religious charter school. “The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City is trying to make charter schools into something they are not,” Nina Rees, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a statement.

Similarly, the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, which represents entities that approve charter schools, says that charter schools are public and criticized Oklahoma’s decision. “Charter school students deserve and enjoy the same civil and constitutional rights protections as any peer attending a traditional district school,” the group said in a statement about the North Carolina case.

Even some leaders of religious schools are wary of the concept of religious charter schools. Kathleen Porter-Magee, who runs a network of private Catholic schools, says that moving to the charter model could divide the school choice coalition and entangle religious schools with excessive bureaucracy. “In order for religious schools to access government funding, we would be knowingly giving up autonomy in exchange for what would likely be excessive government bureaucracy and regulation,” she wrote.

However, school choice advocates at the Manhattan Institute have been advancing the case for religious charter schools. There was also a string of opinion pieces by conservative writers urging the Supreme Court to use the North Carolina dress code case to rule that charter schools are private and therefore not bound by the U.S. Constitution. For instance, columnist George Will suggested that such a ruling would protect charters to make “pedagogical and cultural choices without being vulnerable to suffocating litigation” Ten Republican attorneys general weighed in for the North Carolina school in a brief to the Supreme Court.

Ultimately, as mentioned, the court declined to hear this case, though this did not settle the issue.

Private religious charters would raise big questions about discrimination and access.

The possibility of religious charter schools raises myriad questions. For instance, how would such schools deal with charter schools’ open access requirements? Would they have to admit students who are gay if that clashes with the school’s religious doctrine? What about students from other religions?

The Oklahoma archdiocese that applied for a charter would not say whether the school would admit gay or transgender students. In its charter application, church officials indicated that they would seek “religious exemptions” from state and federal law “with priority given to the Catholic Church’s understanding of itself and its rights and obligations pursuant to the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

The school’s proposed employee handbook notes: “All employees are expected to adhere to and support the positions and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church in the performance of their duties.” There have been a number of reported instances of private Catholic schools firing staff members for marrying a same-sex partner.

If religious charter schools become a reality, courts would likely have to determine how existing charter school statutes apply to religious schools, which typically operate with far less regulation than charters.

Religious charter schools could spread to blue states too.

Oklahoma’s approved religious charter school had the support of many state officials, including the governor, state schools superintendent, and members of the charter board. But religious charters would likely not get such a welcome reception in more liberal states with large charter sectors, like New York or California.

That may not matter. Advocates for the concept say state officials should not be allowed to deny charter schools just because they are religious. “If they can be religious, states with charter schools must permit religious charter schools,” argues Garnett, the Notre Dame law professor. If a religious entity applies for a school in such a state and is denied, the organization could bring a lawsuit making that argument.

If that argument carries the day in court, that would mean that every state with charter schools would have to consider religious charter schools on an even playing field as all other applicants.

What happens next? We’ll see you in court.

If they are to exist, religious charter schools will almost certainly have to go through the courts, as the case in Oklahoma shows. More cases could follow if religious entities elsewhere apply for a charter or if state lawmakers lift bans on religious charter schools. The question of whether charter schools are legally public or private will continue to percolate.

This could take years to play out, particularly since there are many different legal questions in play. Ultimately, the Supreme Court itself may have to tackle the question of religious charter schools.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Inside Colorado’s high-stakes preschool lawsuit pitting religious liberty against LGBTQ rights

2024-09-19T19:31:39+00:00

At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door to greater public funding for private religious schools, a lower court ruling in Colorado could have big implications for the separation of church and state in education.

At the center of the case are two Catholic preschools in suburban Denver that want exemptions from state non-discrimination rules based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The parishes that run the preschools sued the state last year because they didn’t want to have to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families if the preschools joined Colorado’s popular new state-funded preschool program.

A federal judge largely ruled in the state’s favor in June. But the preschools are now appealing — and the case could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Colorado case is one of several unfolding across the country, including in Maine and Vermont, that ask whether religious schools are bound by state non-discrimination rules if they join state-funded programs.

If the Catholic preschools win, it’s possible Colorado children could be shut out of some preschools because of their or their parents’ identities.

Brittany, the mother of a 7-year-old transgender girl, choked up as she talked about the lawsuit.

“It’s so upsetting that there’s so much hate for our kids,” she said. “These kids are just kids. They don’t have a political agenda.”

Brittany’s daughter Naomi is an art-loving, tree-climbing second grader who enjoys reading “Captain Underpants” books and playing pretend with her little sister, who is 4.

The Denver family, who asked that their last name not be used to protect their privacy, is the kind that could be affected by the outcome of Colorado’s Catholic preschools appeal. And if the case — or another one like it — ends up at the Supreme Court, the decision could have a nationwide impact.

Katie Eyer, a law professor at Rutgers University, said, “There are so many of these cases that are currently working their way up through the courts,” she said. “Whether this particular one lands on [the Supreme Court] docket remains to be seen, but it is certainly the type of case that they’ve shown quite a lot of interest in in recent years.”

Colorado invited religious preschools to join state program

As Colorado leaders prepared to roll out universal preschool in the fall of 2023, they invited public and private preschools across the state to join the program. Among them were St. Mary Catholic Virtue School in Littleton and Wellspring Catholic Academy of St. Bernadette in Lakewood, the two schools now at the center of the lawsuit.

The “mixed delivery” approach — meaning both public and private schools can participate — is common in states that fund large preschool programs. In Colorado, it helped ensure there were enough seats available for all of the families that wanted one. This year, about 41,000 4-year-olds are getting half- or full-day tuition-free preschool through the program.

Dozens of religious preschools have joined Colorado’s universal preschool program, including those with Methodist, Lutheran, Jewish, and Muslim underpinnings. One participating preschool is Catholic: St. Columba Catholic Montessori Preschool in Durango.

Experts say that families choose religious preschools for lots of reasons, ranging from a shared faith to factors such as a convenient location, open slots, and high ratings.

But the Archdiocese of Denver wouldn’t let most of the 36 preschools it oversees sign off on the state’s non-discrimination agreement, a requirement to participate.

The big sticking point was the agreement’s protections for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Officials from some religious preschools, including from St. Mary, raised their concerns during regular meetings with state preschool leaders before the program launched.

That’s when state leaders mentioned an idea they’d come up with to allow religious preschools who joined universal preschool to reserve some or all of their seats for members of their congregations, according to testimony from the trial last January. But the archdiocese didn’t like that solution because it didn’t want to limit preschool enrollment to only parish members, an archdiocese official testified.

The Catholic preschools instead wanted the state to exempt them from the parts of the non-discrimination rule covering sexual orientation and gender identity. Other religious groups, including an Orthodox Jewish group and a conservative Lutheran group, also expressed interest in exemptions in a letter to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. State officials refused to grant them, saying non-discrimination protections were part of state law.

“In a sense, church leaders want to have their cake and eat it too,” said Bob Shine, associate director of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic group based near Washington, D.C. that advocates for LGBTQ inclusion.

“They want public funding because in most cases the church cannot sustain a lot of its educational or charitable efforts now, so they need the government money, but they don’t want any of the conditions that come with [it].”

In Denver, the archdiocese this month announced the impending closure of Wellspring and two other Catholic schools due to declining enrollment and financial problems. Last year, the archdiocese closed a K-8 school in Aurora.

Wellspring Catholic Academy of St. Bernadette in Lakewood is one of two Catholic preschools that sued the state of Colorado.

Archdiocese allows some preschools to join state program

While the Denver Archdiocese barred most of its preschools from signing the non-discrimination agreement and joining the state preschool program, there were exceptions. Five preschools under the Archdiocese umbrella signed the form and joined. All serve low-income families and are operated by Catholic Charities of Denver, the Archdiocese’ charitable arm.

Rick Biekers, executive director of early childhood education programs at Catholic Charities of Denver, said the five preschools use a secular curriculum and are open to all families in need.

“We absolutely serve anyone who comes to our doors,” he said in an email.

Lawyers for the Catholic preschools said during the trial that the reason Catholic Charities preschools were allowed to participate in the state preschool program is because they have a different mission than the rest of the Archdiocese preschools. That is, to serve the poor.

In contrast, the other Archdiocese preschools are dedicated to “raising the next generation in the faith,” said Joseph Davis, one of the preschools’ lawyers from the Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, during the trial.

Another lawsuit over Colorado’s non-discrimination rules

In June 2023, about two months before the Catholic preschools filed their lawsuit, an evangelical Christian school in the southern Colorado town of Buena Vista sued the state.

Busy Bees Preschool, part of Darren Patterson Christian Academy, had signed the state’s non-discrimination agreement and joined the universal preschool program. But school leaders, who are represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom based in Scottsdale, Arizona, said they feared the state rules on sexual orientation and gender identity would force the preschool to hire employees who don’t share its faith and change school policies related to restrooms, pronouns, and dress codes.

The lawsuit is similar to the Catholic preschool lawsuit, which also cited concerns about hiring LGBTQ employees. But unlike the Catholic preschools, Darren Patterson leaders say all children are welcome to enroll in Busy Bees, including those from LGBTQ and non-Christian families.

In October, Darren Patterson won a preliminary injunction that blocks Colorado from punishing the school for policies that don’t align with state non-discrimination rules.

Federal District Court Judge Daniel Domenico, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, wrote in his decision that those rules force the preschool “into the unconstitutional choice of abandoning religiously motivated practices or foregoing otherwise available public funding.”

No trial date has been set.

Supreme Court grows more sympathetic to religious liberty claims

In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has become more conservative and more sympathetic to religious liberty claims, often at the expense of arguments favoring a strict separation of church and state.

In a landmark 2022 Maine case called Carson v. Makin, the high court ruled that religious schools can’t be excluded from publicly funded programs if secular private schools are allowed to participate. But the court didn’t clearly address whether states could require those religious schools to agree to non-discrimination rules in order to participate.

“That then tees up this tension,” said Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center. “The religious schools are arguing, … ‘Having to abide by those non-discrimination policies violates our religious rights.’”

In the Colorado case, Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane, who was appointed by former President Jimmy Carter, disagreed with the Catholic preschools on that point in his ruling.

He wrote of Colorado’s non-discrimination rules: “The purpose of the requirement is not to invade religious freedom but to further the implementation of a strongly embraced public value.”

Scott Skinner-Thompson, associate professor of law at the University of Colorado Boulder, said of the opinion, “He makes absolutely clear that it is constitutional and unproblematic for states and local governments to apply LGBTQ non-discrimination provisions to recipients of state funds.”

Sarah Taitz, constitutional legal fellow at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said court decisions often hinge on whether states apply the rules in a “neutral and generally applicable” way.

In his 101-page opinion, Kane concluded the state met that threshold.

Kane did give the Catholic preschools a narrow win in the case — exempting them from rules banning discrimination based on religion. He did that because of Colorado’s decision to let religious preschools prioritize children from their own congregations. He said the state can’t have it both ways — allowing the congregation preference, which is based on religion, while telling participating preschools they can’t discriminate based on religion.

Mom of trans daughter relieved by ruling on LGBTQ inclusion

Brittany, Naomi’s mother, said she and other parents she’s talked to were relieved by Kane’s decision upholding protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“We were really happy that the ultimate ruling that came out was that you can’t discriminate against our community,” said Brittany, who runs a monthly park play group for transgender children and started the Denver chapter of the national group TransParent

“That just felt really, really nice to hear, even though we kind of think it shouldn’t have been an argument to begin with,” she said.

Brittany said her family was lucky because when Naomi came out as transgender at age 4, the teachers at her private preschool were supportive. They even helped with her daughter’s social transition at school, including the switch in pronouns and her name change. The family has found the same openness at their public elementary school in Denver, where Naomi is in second grade and their 4-year-old attends preschool through Colorado’s universal preschool program.

In both kindergarten and first grade, Naomi told her entire class — with teachers facilitating the conversation — that she was transgender and answered questions from classmates.

“She came home happy and excited and said, “Mom, I told my whole class that I was trans and they’re all still my friends,” she said.

When sharing about her daughter’s gender identity, Brittany said, “It’s never the kids that we worry about.”

Brittany said her in-laws are practicing Catholics and when she and her husband broke the news about Naomi’s gender identity, they felt a twinge of uncertainty.

“Specifically because of their faith, we weren’t sure what their reaction was going to be,” she said. “They just told us that they love her no matter what and have been champions for her and other kids like her.”

Catholic preschools want to avoid “conflict” and “confusion”

The Catholic preschools in the Colorado case describe their refusal to enroll children from LGBTQ families as a way to avoid confusing children who might hear one thing from their parents and another from their preschool teachers.

An Archdiocese education official addressed a slice of those potential conflicts at the trial — noting that teachers at the Catholic preschools wouldn’t use a transgender child’s preferred pronouns, or let them wear uniforms or use bathrooms not associated with their gender at birth.

But it’s unclear what other conflicts might arise, for example, if a preschooler’s parents are gay. During the trial, Avery Coats, co-principal at one of the Catholic schools, described the preschool’s instruction related to gender and sexual orientation as age-appropriate.

“We do this in vocabulary like mommy and daddy and marriage and family,” she said.

Coats referred an interview request from Chalkbeat to Kelly Clark, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Denver. Clark did not respond to repeated email requests from Chalkbeat asking about such conflicts.

Nick Reaves, an attorney from Becket, sent an emailed statement on behalf of the Archdiocese, saying in part, that Colorado has excluded Archdiocese preschools and the families they serve from the universal preschool program “simply for staying true to their faith.”

Amanda Henderson, director of the Institute for Religion, Politics & Culture at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, said the possibility that children from LGBTQ families will encounter contradictory perspectives at school isn’t a new dilemma.

“Let families navigate that on their own,” she said. “LGBTQ families have been navigating a culture that was counter to their family for a long, long time.”

Ish Ruiz, assistant professor of theology at Pacific School of Religion, said keeping children from LGBTQ families out of Catholic preschools won’t prevent other students from asking about or sharing what they see in their daily lives.

“That 4-year-old will show up to the classroom … saying, ‘My friend Tommy who doesn’t go to this school has two mommies or two daddies,’ or ‘I have an uncle who’s married to his husband,’” he said. “You cannot sanitize the school from reality.”

Catholics have diverse opinions on LGBTQ issues

Despite guidance crafted by the Archdiocese of Denver that calls for the exclusion of LGBTQ students and families from some schools, not all Catholics agree with the stance.

“The church is not a monolith,” said Ruiz. “The church, in and of itself, has a lot of internal disagreement on the matter.”

Henderson said diverse opinions within the church create a thorny job for the courts.

“It becomes really difficult when a specific court is defining … what a religious belief is or whose religious belief is prioritized over others,” she said.

Beth Mueller Stewart and her husband Dan Stewart are practicing Catholics who disagree so strongly with the Catholic preschools’ argument, they urged the Archdiocese to drop the lawsuit.

In a May letter to Aquila and other church officials, published on the New Ways Ministry web site, the couple described the “tough position” they were in.

“The lawsuit forced us to ask: ‘Do we keep our child at Wellspring Catholic Academy and seemingly support the lawsuit, forsaking our values and our consciences? Or do we forgo Catholic education at Wellspring to stand in solidarity and love with our own LGBTQ loved ones?’”

Ultimately, they withdrew their child from the school.

Meanwhile a Catholic family with a preschooler at St. Mary Catholic Virtue School, joined the two Catholic parishes in suing the state over the non-discrimination agreement. The mother, Lisa Sheley, is a front office coordinator at St. Mary school, and testified at the January trial.

She said she and her husband Dan feel it’s important to give their six children a Catholic education. If St. Mary had participated in Colorado’s universal preschool program, her family would have saved nearly $5,000, she said.

“Obviously with inflation, everything is extremely expensive, but even more so for a family of eight,” she said. “So, anything we could save would be extremely helpful.”

Lisa Sheley could not be reached for comment, including through her lawyers.

Will Colorado’s preschool case lead to K-12 impacts?

In the near-term, the outcome of the Catholic preschools case — or the cases unfolding in Maine and Vermont — won’t affect Colorado’s public K-12 education system.

That’s the question at the heart of another lawsuit over Colorado’s preschool program, as well as lawsuits in Maine and Vermont. In those two states, religious schools want exemptions from rules about sexual orientation and gender identity so they can participate in state programs that cover private school tuition for students who live far from public schools.

But there could be spillover eventually, experts say. Considering Colorado’s charter-friendly environment, an unprecedented effort in Oklahoma to create a charter school run by the Catholic church shows one way that might happen. Charter schools are free publicly funded, privately managed schools.

While the Oklahoma Supreme Court in June ruled the Catholic charter school unconstitutional, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Lurking in that case is this notion that a religious entity could not only seek to participate in public programs, but actually become a public school,” said Kim, of the Education Law Center,

The idea of normalizing public funding for private religious education is concerning, he said “especially if in that process, there’s an erosion or evisceration of non-discrimination principles.”

Already many states have voucher programs that provide students funding for private school tuition, including at religious schools with anti-LGBTQ policies. Colorado has no voucher program, though some experts worry that Amendment 80, a ballot measure up for a vote in November, is a step in that direction.

Despite years of questions about potentially discriminatory practices at voucher-accepting schools, Taitz said the legal questions are a bit different than Colorado’s Catholic preschool case. That’s because in voucher programs, schools don’t get funding directly from the state. Instead, families are the go-between.

“But in terms of some of the principles at stake about discrimination and separation of church and state, vouchers pose a similar, really major problem,” she said.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Oklahoma Supreme Court finds Catholic charter school unconstitutional

2024-06-25T21:51:33+00:00

This story was originally published by Oklahoma Voice and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The Oklahoma Supreme Court has rejected the existence of a publicly funded Catholic charter school in the state.

In a majority opinion issued Tuesday, six of the state’s nine justices agreed with Attorney General Gentner Drummond that the contract creating St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Charter School must be rescinded.

The ruling blocks St. Isidore from opening for its inaugural school year, which was only weeks away with more than 200 students applying to enroll. Catholic leaders say they will explore “all legal options” moving forward.

St. Isidore, a virtual charter school, would teach Catholic doctrine and require attendance at mass. The state funding such a school would violate both the Oklahoma and U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against government-established religion, the majority of the Court decided.

Justice James R. Winchester wrote the opinion and borrowed some of the attorney general’s language — that permitting a state-funded religious school would create a “slippery slope.”

That slippery slope would lead toward “the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without governmental interference,” Winchester wrote.

Justices Yvonne Kauger, James E. Edmondson, Douglas L. Combs, Noma Gurich and Richard Darby agreed. Chief Justice John Kane IV recused.

Vice Chief Justice Dustin P. Rowe agreed only that the state Constitution requires charter schools to be non-religious but disagreed with the rest of the majority’s opinion.

Justice Dana Kuehn dissented to the entire opinion. She said the decision is “destined for the same fate” as other rulings, later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, against allowing private religious schools to receive public funds.

“Contracting with a private entity that has religious affiliations, by itself, does not establish a state religion, nor does it favor one religion over another,” Kuehn wrote.

Drummond called the ruling a “tremendous victory for religious liberty.”

“The framers of the U.S. Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma’s Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the State from sponsoring any religion at all,” he said in a statement.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa created the school and received approval last year from the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board for St. Isidore to open as a state-funded entity.

Archbishop Paul Coakley and Bishop David Konderla said the ruling is “very disappointing for the hundreds of prospective students and their families from across the state of Oklahoma who desired the educational experience and promise of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.”

“We will consider all legal options and remain steadfast in our belief that St. Isidore would have and could still be a valuable asset to students, regardless of socioeconomic, race or faith backgrounds,” Coakley and Konderla said.

Case tested boundaries of church-state separation

The attorney general filed a lawsuit against the school and the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, asking the Supreme Court to intervene. He presented oral arguments to the Court on April 2.

Drummond contended the school plainly violates state laws that prohibit publicly funded schools from adopting a religion.

He said allowing a school like St. Isidore would open the door for state-funded schools to teach other religious beliefs, such as Sharia law or Satanism.

“While I understand that the Governor and other politicians are disappointed with this outcome, I hope that the people of Oklahoma can rejoice that they will not be compelled to fund radical religious schools that violate their faith,” Drummond said.

Gov. Kevin Stitt and state Superintendent Ryan Walters were vocal advocates of the Catholic charter school as a way to grow education options for families.

Stitt said he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will review the case and reverse the ruling.

“I’m concerned we’ve sent a troubling message that religious groups are second-class participants in our education system,” the governor said in a statement. “Charter schools are incredibly popular in Oklahoma — and all we’re saying is: we can’t choose who gets state dollars based on a private entity’s religious status.”

Archdiocese officials said St. Isidore would be open to students of all faiths or no faith, but it would be an environment that is Catholic in all ways. By their own description, the school would be a “genuine instrument of the church” and would take part in the Catholic Church’s evangelizing mission.

Opening St. Isidore as a free, virtual school would allow the church to educate students in all parts of the state, especially in areas where no Catholic school exists, archdiocese officials said.

Attorneys representing the school and the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board contended charter schools are private entities and are free to adopt a religion, unlike public schools. Charter schools are governed by a non-profit board subject to state oversight and are granted more freedom to decide their teaching methods.

The Court rejected the notion that charter schools are anything but public. Charter schools rely on state funds to operate, and Oklahoma law defines public schools as “all free schools supported by public taxation.”

Although they’re allowed more flexibility, charter schools must comply with all laws “in the same manner as a school district,” according to state law.

“The Legislature created Oklahoma charter schools, and Oklahoma law treats them as public schools and governmental bodies,” Winchester wrote. “… They are creatures of state law and may only operate under the authority graduated to them by their charters with the state. St. Isidore will be acting as a surrogate of the state in providing free public education as any other state-sponsored charter school.”

St. Isidore also meets the criteria of a “state actor” under at least two tests the U.S. Supreme Court created to determine whether an entity is acting as an arm of the government. The justices found it meets the “entwinement” test which questions whether the entity is entwined with government policies or whether the government is involved in the entity’s management or control.

The school also meets the “public function” test because St. Isidore will provide free public education, a responsibility the Oklahoma Constitution has decided exclusively belongs to the state, according to the opinion.

The justices found St. Isidore also violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion.

“St. Isidore’s educational philosophy is to establish and operate the school as a Catholic school,” Winchester wrote. “Under both state and federal law, the state is not authorized to establish or fund St. Isidore.”

Separate lawsuit alleges St. Isidore would discriminate

A separate lawsuit against the school is pending in Oklahoma County District Court. A coalition of Oklahoma parents, faith leaders and education advocates were the first to sue the school, contending it would discriminate against LGBTQ+ students and employees, fail to adequately serve children with disabilities and unlawfully indoctrinate into a religion.

They are represented by a team of attorneys from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Education Law Center and the Freedom from Religion Foundation, along with local counsel.

That case is scheduled for a three-day hearing in late July over whether St. Isidore should be eligible to open and receive state funds. The impact the Supreme Court’s ruling will have on that lawsuit is unclear.

The legal organizations celebrated the Court’s decision on Tuesday, calling it a safeguard for public education and the separation of religion and government.

“Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and serve all students,” they wrote in a statement. “St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which plans to discriminate against students, families, and staff and indoctrinate students into one religion, cannot operate as a public charter school.”

Nuria Martinez-Keel covers education for Oklahoma Voice.

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Plans for first religious charter school in the U.S. considered by Oklahoma Supreme Court

2024-04-02T21:29:29+00:00

This story was originally published by Oklahoma Voice and is republished under a Creative Commons license.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Three months before the nation’s first religious charter school is scheduled to open in Oklahoma, the state’s attorney general urged the state Supreme Court to void the school’s founding documents, contending its existence “eviscerates the separation of church and state.”

Attorney General Gentner Drummond argued before the state’s nine justices on Tuesday that permitting a Catholic charter school would violate state law and the Oklahoma Constitution, both of which require that public schools be “free of sectarian control.”

Attorneys representing the school’s interests contend charter schools are privately run entities that aren’t subject to the same laws that govern public schools.

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would be the first state-funded charter school in the country to teach and abide by a specific religious faith. It plans to open July 1 and have its first day of school Aug. 12 with enrollment up to 500 students.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa created the school to provide a free, online Catholic education throughout the state. Students would be required to attend mass, learn Catholic doctrine, and follow school rules informed by Christian beliefs.

The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 in June to approve the school’s creation.

Drummond said the board members who voted in favor of the school “betrayed their oath of office.” He asked the state Supreme Court to overturn the decision.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond speaks during Public Schools Day on Feb. 28, 2024, at the Oklahoma Capitol.

The attorney general said after the hearing he expects the Court to rule in the case before St. Isidore opens July 1. If the justices decide against him, Drummond said he “would be committed to appealing it to the United States Supreme Court.”

Attorneys representing the school and the state board said charter schools, including St. Isidore, aren’t public entities subject to the state Constitution, though they chiefly rely on state funding.

State law defines a charter school as a “public school established by contract” with a state agency, a higher education institution or a local school district. It also mandates that charter schools be nonsectarian.

But the state doesn’t operate St. Isidore, said Philip Sechler, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a national Christian law firm representing the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board.

He said the school is “privately operated” and self-sufficient with its own bylaws, staff and curriculum.

“They’re a Catholic school, but they welcome everyone,” Sechler said. “Nobody is required to go to St. Isidore. That’s very important. It’s an option among many.”

Private entities who want to establish a charter school shouldn’t be excluded from state funding on account of religion, Sechler said.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings affirmed that publicly funded programs, like vouchers to private schools and public grants, can’t leave out certain private organizations just because they’re religious.

Drummond said there’s “an ocean between those two issues.” Religious entities often receive taxpayer funds to help them offer a public benefit, such as a church-affiliated hospital, but he said public education is a core service the state provides.

Related: Could religious charter schools upend American education? A Chalkbeat explainer.

St. Isidore is a joint venture between the church and the state — two entities who agreed to enter into a charter contract with each other to found the school, Drummond said.

“My sense of it is that it will be difficult for the Court to not grant my request,” the attorney general said after the hearing.

Justice Noma Gurich seemed skeptical of the idea that a state-funded charter school is free of constitutional obligations.

“Where is the choice for Oklahoma taxpayers not to support the Catholic Church?” she asked during the hearing.

In a similar line of inquiry, Vice-Chief Justice Dustin P. Rowe asked whether taxpayers are not “indirectly supporting the Catholic Church” by funding the school and questioned how this wouldn’t violate the state Constitution.

The Court’s most experienced justice, Yvonne Kauger, asked bluntly, “Are we a test case?”

Many, including Drummond, have assumed St. Isidore’s backers hoped from the start that the case would land in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It sure looks like it,” Kauger said.

Sechler and Michael McGinley, a D.C.-based attorney representing St. Isidore, told the justices the Oklahoma school isn’t intended that way.

Justice Dana Kuehn appeared to be more receptive to the school’s stance.

She interjected during the hearing to ask whether public schools are “establishing a type of religion” by teaching about concepts, like evolution, that contradict some religious beliefs.

“Do you have to give parents a choice on the other side?” she asked. “Does that open the door for a charter school to have a religious component?”

Despite arguments that the school is private, St. Isidore’s teachers will qualify for a public pension and state-funded insurance benefits. The school agreed to follow state laws requiring open records, open meetings, yearly academic testing and a minimum number of days in the school year, among other regulations.

“They are a public school,” Drummond said after the hearing. “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck. It’s a public school. I think that they were hoping that the Supreme Court would bite on that distinction. I just don’t see the majority of the Court buying that argument.”

Sechler said the school abides by those state regulations only because it agreed to do so in its charter contract, not because it is legally obligated to like traditional public schools.

The chairperson of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, Robert Franklin, said he has always believed charter schools to be public.

Franklin and William Pearson were the only two board members to vote against opening St. Isidore. They also were the only two board members present at Tuesday’s hearing.

Robert Franklin, chair of the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, leads a meeting on Oct. 9, 2024, at the Oklahoma History Center.

The three others who voted in favor of St. Isidore — Brian Bobek, Scott Strawn, and Nellie Tayloe Sanders — have vacated their seats on the board.

Franklin said it was an “odd position” for him and Pearson to listen to attorneys arguing for a school they opposed.

“At the end of the day, these questions need to be resolved,” he said afterward. “And once the questions are resolved, then we can move forward.”

A separate lawsuit filed by Oklahoma faith leaders, education advocates and parents is challenging the Catholic charter school. That case is pending in Oklahoma County District Court.

Nuria Martinez-Keel covers education for Oklahoma Voice.

Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Indiana bill allowing chaplains in public schools advances despite constitutional concerns

2024-01-24T21:43:36+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat Indiana’s free daily newsletter to keep up with Indianapolis Public Schools, Marion County’s township districts, and statewide education news.

Update: The Indiana legislative session ended on March 8, 2024. Here are the education bills that did and didn’t pass.

Indiana lawmakers advanced two bills on Wednesday that could further blur the lines between religious instruction and public schools, despite concerns that they might put schools in legal jeopardy.

Senate Bill 50 would allow schools to bring in chaplains as volunteers or employees to provide counseling to students and educators, while House Bill 1137 would require principals to let students leave campus for religious instruction under certain conditions.

Both bills passed their respective chambers’ education committees Wednesday despite questions about whether they maintain appropriate boundaries with respect to religion in public schools. Proponents say that neither bill requires students to receive religious instruction.

Under Senate Bill 50, school chaplains could provide only secular counseling unless the students or their parents gave permission for nonsecular guidance — prompting concerns from the ACLU of Indiana about violations of students’ constitutional rights.

Sen. Stacey Donato, a Logansport Republican who wrote the bill, described the proposal as another tool to address students’ social-emotional needs while alleviating the workload on the state’s school counselors. Indiana has one school counselor for every 694 students, according to one report from last year from the American School Counselor Association, which recommends a ratio of one for every 250 students.

The bill, which passed along party lines, received support from education groups, including the Indiana School Boards Association, the Indiana School Counselors Association, and the Indiana Urban Schools Association, who all said the bill provided clear guidelines for chaplain positions.

Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation allowing unlicensed chaplains to work in state public schools. Donato’s legislation says the chaplains must have master’s degrees and at least two years of counseling experience under the provisions of the bill, and would have to pass a criminal background check.

Their communication with students would be confidential, though Donato said she will amend the bill to require that they report child abuse or neglect.

The ACLU of Indiana raised concerns about violations of the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion. Similar concerns were echoed by Democratic lawmakers.

They also raised several questions, such as whether the chaplains would be school employees, what would happen if a student practiced a different religion from the chaplain, and what would happen if a student’s parent requested that they receive religious counseling against the student’s wishes.

Sen. Andrea Hunley, an Indianapolis Democrat, also said the bill didn’t specify how a parent would be notified if a student gave permission on their own for the chaplain to provide religious instruction — a departure from lawmakers’ recent efforts to ensure schools notify parents when students request to use different names or pronouns.

Republican lawmakers defeated an amendment to require parental permission for religious counseling, as well as another to require that the religious counseling be nonsecular.

Clergy members did not immediately throw their support behind the bill.

Chaplains may not have training in child development and psychology, and may not be qualified to act as counselors, said Gray Lesesne, dean and rector at Christ Church Cathedral in Indianapolis, who opposed the bill. And the provision protecting communication between a student and school chaplain as confidential could violate boundaries, he said.

“Even if I were to dispense secular advice to a young person as a chaplain, they would have a difficult time separating me from my role and calling and could interpret that as religious counseling whether I intend it to be or not,” he said.

Bill would change off-campus religious instruction rules

House Bill 1137, meanwhile, would bolster an existing Indiana law that allows students to leave school grounds for religious instruction for up to 120 minutes per week, subject to their principals’ discretion.

Under the bill, principals would be required to allow students to leave. The principals would work to determine an appropriate time to do so in collaboration with parents and religious organizations. In order to leave for religious instruction, students must not be listed as chronically absent.

The bill received broad support from lawmakers and advocates for religious instruction, who said many parents wanted to provide students religious teaching during the school day.

While the bill passed unanimously out of committee, Democratic lawmakers and representatives of public school organizations raised concerns about its impact on student absenteeism and academics.

With several religious organizations potentially pulling students out of the school day, the bill takes away principals’ discretion to keep academic time intact, said Christopher Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association.

Furthermore, Rep. Ed DeLaney, an Indianapolis Democrat, said it empowered religious organizations to pressure public schools into allowing students to leave — and put schools at risk of lawsuits.

Still, advocates for the bill said releasing students for religious instruction — a concept protected under U.S. law — allowed students to take religious lessons during times that didn’t conflict with academic courses or after-school extracurricular activities.

“A lot of parents want the ability to send a message to their students, this is how important it is to our family that you have religious instruction,” said Joel Penton, founder of LifeWise Academy, a national organization that provides Bible-based education to public school students off-campus during the school day.

Dennis Gutwein, a board member at the West Central School Corporation, said students at his district took LifeWise classes during library hours, but that the librarian allowed them to visit at other times during the day, like during study hall.

Committee members also added an unrelated amendment to House Bill 1137 that seeks to bolster civic education in the state by creating a seal to recognize excellence in civics for students, teachers, and schools.

Both HB 1137 and SB 50 will advance to their respective chambers.

You can track HB 1137 and SB 50 on the General Assembly’s website.

Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado backs off proposed ban on religious instruction in state-funded preschool

2024-01-05T00:38:08+00:00

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Colorado officials leading the state’s new universal preschool program originally planned to ban religious lessons and activities during state-funded class time. Not anymore.

In the latest round of proposed state rules posted publicly on Wednesday, they have removed an explicit ban on religious instruction during universal preschool hours. The rules, which would take effect next summer, are set to be considered by a state advisory committee on Jan. 11 and adopted in February.

The new draft rules mark the latest in a series of flip-flops by state officials on the subject of religious education in its new $322 million preschool program. The state’s shifting approach stems partly from the program’s rushed rollout, and partly from a new legal landscape shaped by recent U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions permitting the use of public funds for religious education.

Practically speaking, the state’s decision to remove the ban on religious instruction could attract more faith-based preschools to the universal preschool program, which provides tuition-free classes to more than 60% of the state’s 4-year-olds this year. Currently, there are 40 faith-based preschools among more than 1,900 preschools in the program. Because of mixed messages about whether religious instruction was allowed, some faith-based preschools may have decided not to participate this year.

State officials declined to comment Thursday about why they eliminated the ban on religious instruction in the proposed preschool rules. Ian McKenzie, a spokesman for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, said the department will comment following the conclusion of a trial in a federal lawsuit brought by two Catholic preschools challenging the universal preschool program’s nondiscrimination rules.

“We’re just letting the trial finish before any comments on any of its content,” he said Thursday.

The trial centers not on religious instruction, but on whether religious preschools in the universal preschool program have to accept students from LGBTQ families. It began Tuesday and is expected to finish late this week or early next week.

Colorado always planned to offer universal preschool classes in a variety of settings, including public school classrooms, private child care centers, and faith-based preschools. They never planned to let faith-based preschools teach religion during state-funded classes.

But state officials at the early childhood department ran out of time to make rules on the topic before the program launched in August. There was a widely distributed fact sheet that talked about religious instruction being prohibited, but no official rules. That allowed faith-based preschools participating in the program to incorporate religious stories, songs, and prayers however they wished this year.

In October, the state proposed rules that would do what officials had intended all along: ban religious instruction in universal preschool. But in December, the conservative group Advance Colorado threatened to sue if the state followed through with the proposed ban. With the state’s latest draft rules, it appears the state has shelved its plan for now.

Faith-based preschools participating in the universal program differ widely in how much religion they incorporate into their preschool classes.

Leaders at Grand Junction’s Landmark Preschool, which is housed in a Baptist church, say religion is incorporated into everything they do, including math and reading. One morning last fall, a class of 4-year-old preschoolers recited Bible verses with their teacher.

“OK, here we go,” said teacher Corrie Haynes to the 13 children sitting in front of her on a green rug. “Philippians 4:19. My God shall supply all your needs,” they said together. Next, they sang songs about God and talked about sin and forgiveness.

At King Baptist Child Development Center and Preschool in Denver, preschool classes look much different. The school, which is owned by the adjacent church, uses a secular curriculum and doesn’t incorporate religious content during the school day.

Telaya Purchase, assistant director of the center, said during an interview with Chalkbeat earlier this school year that children can participate in what’s called a devotional before school starts at 9 a.m. That includes the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer, and the song “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” She also said children say grace at meals, but can skip it if they choose.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Proposed ban on religious instruction in Colorado’s state-funded preschools may spark legal fight

2023-11-28T23:24:42+00:00

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When teacher Corrie Haynes asked the preschoolers gathered on the green rug in front of her what sin is, a little boy answered confidently: “All the bad things we do.”

“Very good,” she said.

Next, the 13 children, most wearing maroon or blue polo shirts and dark skirts or pants, learned that everybody sins — even teachers, moms and dads, and the church pastor — and that although God hates sin, he doesn’t hate people who sin.

“He still loves us very much even when we sin,” Haynes said.

A minute later, Haynes led the 4-year-olds in a song about manners: “Always say thank you, always say please. When we’re ungrateful, God is not pleased.”

Such religious content has long been woven through the lessons at Landmark Preschool, which is nestled inside Landmark Baptist Church in the western Colorado city of Grand Junction. What’s different this year is that state taxpayers are covering the bill — more than $100,000 — for 20 preschoolers to attend classes there.

Colorado explicitly invited faith-based preschools to participate in its new $322 million universal preschool program, which despite a rocky rollout has proven popular with families. But state officials have sent mixed messages about whether preschools can offer religious instruction during state-funded class time. Prior to the launch, they said it was forbidden. Now, they say it’s not, but that next year it could be.

Debates about public funding for religious education come amid an ongoing conservative push to break down long-held ideas about the separation of church and state, including in a lawsuit underway now over a religious charter school in Oklahoma. Colorado’s Constitution, like those in many other states, prohibits using public money for religious purposes. But a series of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions has hollowed out such provisions.

In order to participate in Colorado’s universal preschool program, preschools, including Landmark, had to sign a contract agreeing to a variety of conditions, including that they would not discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity. That requirement is now the subject of two lawsuits — one by a Christian preschool in Chaffee County and the other by two Catholic parishes that run preschools near Denver. The contract that providers signed did not mention religious instruction.

Lauren Weber, the director of Landmark Preschool, said such instruction is “built into pretty much everything we do.”

But some experts say mixing public dollars and religious education clashes with the nation’s historical underpinnings.

“If our taxpayer money is funding religious exercise … then we are putting ourselves in a position of the state and the church getting entangled in a way that the founders were trying to avoid,” said Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder.

State plans to restrict religious lessons in universal preschool

Colorado early childhood officials have proposed a ban on religious instruction in a set of rules they plan to approve next spring. It’s not clear where that would leave programs like Landmark, where leaders hope to open two additional universal preschool classrooms next year.

Such questions are playing out amid a rapidly changing legal landscape. The latest shift came in June 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in a Maine voucher case called Carson v. Makin. The court ruled that Maine could not exclude schools that offer religious instruction from a state-funded program open to secular private schools. The ruling built on a series of decisions in which the high court has grown more sympathetic to the idea of using public money for religious purposes, including religious education.

Steven Green, a law professor at Willamette University who specializes in church and state issues, said the shift has come as the share of Christians in the United States shrinks and the share of people without a religious affiliation grows.

Amid these demographic changes, “We’re seeing a kind of circling of the wagons and a feeling of being dispossessed of privilege, particularly white, conservative Christians,” he said.

That narrative has created growing support for measures that allow or inject religion into public life, he said.

Green said that five or six years ago, Colorado could have banned religious instruction during state-funded preschool classes fairly easily. But the U.S. Supreme Court has mostly invalidated state constitutional provisions that prohibit public funds for religious purposes. Now, such provisions — often referred to as Blaine amendments — are “pretty much unenforceable,” he said.

Michael Bindas, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm, agreed. He also said the ruling in the Carson case, which he argued on behalf of the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court, makes clear that asking faith-based schools to eliminate religious instruction during state-funded class time amounts to religious discrimination.

If Colorado adopts the proposed rules banning religious instruction during state-funded preschool hours, he said, “I suspect it will be tied up in years of litigation.”

Welner worries that some preschools’ religious teachings could send damaging messages to children. He raised the possibility of a young transgender child attending universal preschool in a faith-based program that’s intolerant of transgender people.

“There is something disturbing, to me at least, about using taxpayer money to subsidize the education of a child in an environment that is essentially attacking the kid’s identity,” he said.

Parent choice was part of the universal preschool vision

Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, has championed state-funded preschool for all since hitting the gubernatorial campaign trail in 2017. Two years later, during his first term, voters approved a nicotine tax to help pay for the program.

Parents began applying last winter, using an online form to choose up to five preschools they liked. The state matching system then assigned their child to a spot at one of them. Despite some confusion about the application process, families flocked to join, and enrollment quickly exceeded the state’s projections. Today, nearly 50,000 children are getting tuition-free preschool through the program, most of them 4-year-olds.

From the beginning, state leaders planned to offer universal preschool in all kinds of settings — in public schools, faith-based centers, and homes licensed by the state. The idea was to give parents lots of choices, more than were offered under the state’s previous smaller preschool program for children with risk factors. That was mostly offered in public school classrooms.

Of the more than 1,900 preschools that joined the universal program, 39 are faith-based, according to state data. Together, they serve about 930 children.

Allowing faith-based preschools to participate in publicly funded early childhood programs is nothing new. The federal Head Start preschool program, plus a number of states and cities, have done it for years. But unlike Colorado’s universal program, those programs — including Denver’s long-running taxpayer-funded preschool tuition assistance program — generally prohibit religious instruction during the government-funded portion of the day.

Such a restriction was on Colorado’s radar, too. An open records request found that in October 2022, the state’s universal preschool director sent a fact sheet to more than 50 local universal preschool officials stating that faith-based preschools could participate, as long as they didn’t use state funds for religious programming. Some of those local officials posted that condition on their websites.

But somehow, amid the chaos leading up to the launch, the issue got lost. Last spring, the state ran out of time to create rules on things like class size, curriculum, and teacher training, so it told participating preschools to “keep doing what you’re doing.” State leaders pledged to come up with rules by the start of the second year in August 2024 and are in that process now.

In October, state officials told Chalkbeat by email that there’s nothing in writing prohibiting religious instruction in universal preschool. A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood declined to comment about why the department didn’t establish rules on the issue from the outset.

Will this Christian curriculum be used in preschools next year?

Landmark Preschool opened in 2012 and serves children from infancy through preschool, about half of them from low-income families. It has the second highest rating on the state’s five-level scale for child care quality.

Landmark Preschool in Grand Junction, Colorado.

The school has two universal preschool classrooms, one that is play-based and one that is more structured, teaching skills like cursive writing. Both use the Abeka curriculum, a program popular with Christian schools and homeschooling families that describes the Bible as the foundation for all learning.

Currently, there are no state rules governing curriculum in universal preschool, but state officials plan to create a list of acceptable curriculums before the second year of the program starts. It’s not clear what the criteria will be or whether programs like Abeka will pass muster.

Weber, the center’s director, and Christy Barrows, an administrator at Landmark’s adjoining K-12 school, say they received repeated reassurances from local universal preschool officials that their program and curriculum would be acceptable.

“We’re very open about who we are and what we teach,” said Weber. “I tell all my tours, ‘Find the right fit for you, and if it’s not (here), that’s OK.’”

The preschool welcomes all children, including those from LGBTQ families, she said. But hiring decisions are not as simple.

“We have the Christian values and morals and beliefs,” Weber said. “That hire may not be a good fit for our center, because we will be teaching these values, and if you don’t believe in these values, that’s really hard to be hired.”

Bible lessons shape storytime at Landmark Preschool

Inside Haynes’ preschool classroom, it was time for a Bible story on obedience — specifically obedience to God. Between pauses to settle antsy children, Haynes told about a young girl who was stolen from her family and forced to work for the powerful general Naaman, who had leprosy.

“There were huge sores all over Naaman’s skin, and all these sores would keep getting worse and worse,” Haynes explained. But the girl stepped in to help, suggesting Naaman should visit a prophet.

“The little girl could have said, ‘It serves Naaman right to have leprosy. I’ve been taken away from my home and made to work as a servant,’” Haynes said.

Instead, “the girl chose to do what was right and forgive even though no one had told her to do it.”

Weber, who sat nearby observing the class, is waiting to see what new rules universal preschool leaders put in place and whether Abeka will make the approved curriculum list.

“Right now, it’s working out just fine, but in the future what does it look like?” she said. “We’re just going to take it year by year and see what we do.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Religious charter school rejected in Oklahoma, but a national fight looms

2023-04-12T00:36:59+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to keep up with how public education is changing.

A state board in Oklahoma voted down Tuesday an application for the country’s first religious charter school, highlighting the legal uncertainty around using tax dollars to directly pay for religious education.

In rejecting the school’s initial application, board members acknowledged that the larger issue of whether religious charter schools pass legal muster would likely be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court. The court has already ruled that states cannot exclude religious schools from private school choice programs.

If the court eventually rules in favor of religious charter schools, as some legal experts expect, it could have broad implications for the separation of church and state, as well as lead to more charter schools and less money for traditional public schools.

“This is a huge deal,” said Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut, “and not just for red states, but for the entire country.”

The unanimous vote, which came after about two hours of discussion by Oklahoma’s five-member Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, delayed a final decision on the application for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The school can submit a revised application, which could come before the board again as soon as next month.

Board members raised a number of issues with the application, from how the proposed charter school would serve students with disabilities to its management structure to how it would ensure internet connectivity for students. But the thorniest question was whether it was even legal to approve a charter school with an explicitly religious mission.

“The constitutional issue is a big high hurdle,” said Board Chairperson Robert Franklin.

Another board member, Scott Strawn, said, “Is it settled law? That’s the gray area we’re all living in.”

The Catholic Church in Oklahoma City and Tulsa proposed the online charter school as a way to reach students in rural areas with few local schools. Named for the patron saint of the internet, the St. Isidore school would eventually enroll up to 1,500 students statewide in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Charter schools are publicly funded but operated by private groups rather than local school boards. Some religious groups run charter schools, but the schools are fully secular.

By contrast, the Oklahoma charter school would be explicitly religious. The school application says Catholic schools are “places of evangelization” that serve the mission of the church. The online charter school would display religious symbols such as crucifixes, and students would study religion and attend church services, the application says.

Before the vote Tuesday, the board heard from several commenters opposed to religious charter schools.

Bruce Prescott, a retired Baptist minister, said religious charter schools would “upend the entire educational landscape in Oklahoma.”

“One of the hallmarks of public schools in America is that they are non-discriminatory and secular in their acceptance of all students regardless of their faith or beliefs,” he said.

A proposed religious charter school sparks debate

Critics say the proposed school would violate state laws and the “establishment clause” in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which prohibits the government from endorsing any religion. They have also raised concerns that the school could discriminate against students or employees based on their religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

In its application, the church said the school would adopt an anti-discrimination policy, but would also defer to Catholic teachings on issues such as marriage and homosexuality, which the church considers immoral when acted upon. In interviews, Oklahoma church officials have declined to say whether the school would admit openly gay or transgender students.

“St. Isidore plans to, or at the very least reserves the right to, unlawfully discriminate in admissions and employment,” said a letter to the state virtual charter school board from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a legal advocacy group that opposes the proposed school.

Proponents of the school argue that it is the state’s charter school law, not the proposed school, that violates the First Amendment. They say that stopping religious groups from operating charter schools according to their faith amounts to religious discrimination.

In December, Oklahoma’s former Republican attorney general issued an opinion saying the state’s ban on religious charter schools likely violated the First Amendment. But shortly after, the state’s newly elected Republican attorney general withdrew the opinion, saying it tried to “justify state-funded religion.”

The state’s Republican governor attacked the move by Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

“You contend that the United States and the Oklahoma Constitutions permit, and indeed require, the state to discriminate against religious organizations seeking authorization to operate charter schools,” Gov. Kevin Stitt wrote in a letter to Drummond. “In fact, the opposite is true.”

Several members of the statewide virtual charter school board noted the differing legal opinions in the discussion Tuesday. Franklin, the board chair, said he asked prior to the meeting if board members would have legal protection and “support from the attorney general’s office” if they were sued after the final decision.

“We’re not going to be able to answer that legal question,” he said.

The big legal question: Are charter schools public or private?

Both sides of the debate about whether charter schools can be religious tend to agree that, under the U.S. Constitution, public schools cannot promote religion. Where they disagree is whether charter schools are truly public schools.

In legal terms, the question is whether charter schools are “state actors.” If so, they cannot impose religious beliefs on students.

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said charter schools are clearly state actors.

“I would say there’s 101 reasons why they are state actors,” he said, “and none why they are not.”

He noted that charter schools and traditional public schools both receive public money, cannot charge tuition or turn students away, and must adhere to state academic standards. Unlike traditional public schools, charter schools don’t answer to elected school boards and they enjoy flexibility from some state regulations. But those qualities don’t make charter schools “private actors,” Black argued.

If Oklahoma were to approve the plan for a religious charter school, the state would essentially be endorsing the school’s religious beliefs, Black said.

“That is the state adopting private religious beliefs as the state’s curriculum,” he said. “That stamp all by itself is state action.”

But proponents of religious charter schools argue they are more private than public.

Nicole Stelle Garnett, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said charter schools do not qualify as state actors because their actions cannot be attributed to the government. In fact, she argues, the premise behind charter schools is that they operate independently of the state in a way that traditional public schools cannot.

“That’s kind of the whole point of charter schools,” she said, “to foster pluralism and foster innovation by giving them freedom from government control.”

Whether or not charter schools are state actors is at the heart of a legal case in North Carolina, where a student sued a charter school that requires girls to wear skirts. The school has argued that it is not subject to federal anti-discrimination laws because it is not a state actor.

A lower court ruled against the school, which appealed to the Supreme Court. In January, the court asked the Biden administration to weigh in on the matter, which could signal the court’s interest in the legal question.

Based on recent Supreme Court rulings that said states cannot stop religious schools from receiving public benefits, some legal experts think the court’s conservative majority will declare that charter schools are not state actors — and therefore free to promote religious beliefs. Such a ruling would raise a new set of issues, including whether religious charter schools may discriminate against students or staffers on religious grounds.

“Those are questions that remain unanswered,” Garnett said.

Some of the original proponents of charter schools, however, say any attempt to mix charter schools and religious instruction runs counter to the intent of those schools.

“If a religious school receives public funding, that is not a charter school and should not be called that,” said Ember Reichgott Junge, a former Democratic state senator in Minnesota who wrote the senate version of the country’s first charter school law, which passed in 1991. “It’s something else.”

Patrick Wall is a senior reporter covering national education issues. Contact him at pwall@chalkbeat.org. Cara Fitzpatrick is a story editor at Chalkbeat.

What will the Supreme Court decision on prayer mean for schools?

2022-06-27T22:03:51+00:00

A Washington State school district cannot bar a coach from personally but prominently praying at the 50-yard line after a high school football game, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the six Republican-appointed judges.

It’s the court’s latest move to protect religious freedom in education — and bypass concerns about separation of church and state. Just last week the conservative majority also said that religious schools cannot be singled out for exclusion from public funding.

But the decision raises nearly as many questions as it does answers, including what sorts of limits on religious expression in schools are allowed and where the court is headed next. Here’s what we know:

What did the court rule?

Public schools generally cannot bar their employees from conducting a “private” and “personal” religious expression while on the job, a 6-3 Supreme Court majority said.

In this case, assistant football coach Joseph Kennedy must be allowed to pray after football games even if the public will see him doing so, the court said. Kennedy had lost his job after refusing the school district’s directive to pray out of public view.

“Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance,” wrote Gorsuch. “The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.”

Wait — what does “private” and “personal” mean here?

It’s complicated, and this was a key issue in this case. The district argued that the coach’s prayer was not private for several reasons: Kennedy was sometimes joined by players from the team, the prayer occurred while he was still on the job, and it was high profile, garnering widespread attention in the community.

But the majority ruled that the prayer was in fact private because the coach never asked or mandated his players to join and it wasn’t “within the scope of his duties as a coach.”

“He was not instructing players, discussing strategy, encouraging better on-field performance, or engaged in any other speech the District paid him to produce as a coach,” wrote Gorsuch.

The opinion also pointed out that other coaches took breaks from their job after the game to mingle with family or make a phone call; punishing Kennedy for praying amounts to singling out religion for unfair treatment.

The opinion analogizes the prayer to other personal but publicly visible expressions of religious adherence.

If any noticeable religious expression were considered a public endorsement, wrote Gorsuch, “a school could fire a Muslim teacher for wearing a headscarf in the classroom or prohibit a Christian aide from praying quietly over her lunch in the cafeteria.”

The dissent by Justice Sonia Sotomayor scoffed at the idea that the high-profile prayer was really private, even including pictures of Kennedy praying while surrounded by players.

“This case is not about the limits on an individual’s ability to engage in private prayer at work,” she wrote for the three Democratic-appointed justices. “This case is about whether a school district is required to allow one of its employees to incorporate a public, communicative display of the employee’s personal religious beliefs into a school event.”

So does this mean public schools can, say, require prayers again?

No — the opinion suggests that schools and coaches still can’t conduct public prayer or religious expression that requires students to participate.

In this particular case, Kennedy had led prayer with students in the locker room and held religiously inspired pep talks after the game. But the coach’s lawyer did not defend these practices and the court seems to concede that those would not be allowed. Only his “private” prayer — while not acting in his capacity as a coach — is protected, the decision suggests.

“The only prayer Mr. Kennedy sought to continue was the kind he had started out doing at the beginning of his tenure — the prayer he gave alone,” wrote Gorsuch.

Gorsuch also seemed to reiterate prior decisions banning schools from broadcasting a student-led prayer over the public address system before a football game or having a rabbi deliver a prayer during a high school graduation ceremony.

What about concerns that players might feel like they had to join even a “private” prayer?

Gorsuch suggested that this is a legitimate concern in theory, but that it wasn’t an issue in this particular case. He emphasized that Kennedy’s final three prayers — which ultimately triggered the district suspending him — did not involve any players from his team.

Not so fast, countered the dissent. This ignores subtle pressure that students might face to join the prayer and the fact that Kennedy had at times conducted prayers with most of the team present, Sotomayor said.

The majority opinion, she wrote, “applies a nearly toothless version of the coercion analysis, failing to acknowledge the unique pressures faced by students when participating in school-sponsored activities.“

Sotomayor also pointed out that some parents had said their children had felt pressure to join their teammates in some of Kennedy’s prayers. Gorsuch dismissed that as hearsay, and a remnant of the more public prayers that Kennedy had agreed to stop.

How do schools know what sort of religious practices are and aren’t allowed now?

That may prove tricky, and will likely depend on a complex set of factors and legal rules that the Supreme Court hasn’t fully fleshed out.

The bottom line is that schools will have a hard time limiting private religious expression on the job, particularly when staff have down time of any sort. Of course, as discussed, the distinction between public and private is not always clear.

It seems like schools will still be able to stop religious acts that pressure students to join — say, starting class with a prayer. But the bar for what constitutes undue pressure may be fairly high.

Schools cannot bar religious expression just because it might appear to some that the school is “endorsing” religion. This has been used in previous cases, but Gorsuch firmly rejected this logic.

Instead, Gorsuch said that schools should look to “historical practices and understandings” to determine whether a given act runs afoul of the separation of church and state, citing a 2013 decision that allowed a town council to start meetings with a prayer.

Sotomayor predicted significant confusion in response to this decision.

“How will school administrators exercise their responsibilities to manage school curriculum and events when the Court appears to elevate individuals’ rights to religious exercise above all else?” she wrote. “Today’s opinion provides little in the way of answers.”

What does this say about the Supreme Court and its approach to religion and schools?

This is part of the court’s recent march to make schooling more accommodating to religion and religious expression.

While prior courts have placed a greater emphasis on drawing a clear line between church and state, the conservative majority has focused more on protecting the rights of religious adherents — including providing public dollars for religious schools or, as in this case, allowing high-profile religious acts from a school employee.

“Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic — whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” wrote Gorusch.

In her dissent, Sotomayor claims the majority “yet again” gave “short shrift to the … prohibition on state establishment of religion.”

“The Court sets us further down a perilous path in forcing States to entangle themselves with religion, with all of our rights hanging in the balance,” she concluded.

What related issues might the Supreme Court take up next?

Future federal religion and schools cases could focus on:

whether charter schools can be religious
whether private schools that receive public dollars can be barred from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity
whether public school teachers can be required to use the preferred pronouns of transgender students, if doing so violates their own religious beliefs, and
whether states can bar all private schools from receiving government aid.

Practically, what will this mean for my school?

School staff may have more freedom to express their personal religious beliefs at school or school events, although just how far this freedom extends isn’t clear.

School district officials will likely face continued legal ambiguity over what is and isn’t allowed. But the latest case could lead them to be more concerned about violating individuals’ religious freedom than violating the separation of church and state. That could lead officials to err on the side of allowing certain religious expressions that they might have otherwise tried to limit.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

Supreme Court says religious schools can’t be singled out for exclusion from public dollars

2022-06-21T15:20:43+00:00

The Supreme Court has made it a bit easier for K-12 religious schools to access public dollars, the latest in a string of cases to do so.

Tuesday’s ruling, by the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, declares that states can’t limit religious schools from accessing public funding just because they are religious.

Maine’s voucher program “operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion in Carson v. Makin. And that violates the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion, he said.

But the decision won’t turn on a money spigot for religious private schools. Maine will have to allow those schools into its small voucher program, but the ruling does not require states to offer funding to religious schools if they don’t already fund private schools.

The decision effectively ends one chapter of litigation, appearing to close the last possible door for states to exclude religious schools from private school aid programs. And it could mark the beginning of a new series of lawsuits, including about whether charter schools can be religious and whether states can exclude private schools of all kinds from government aid.

Backed by a conservative law firm, the latest suit was brought by two families who were eligible for Maine’s small voucher program that pays private or public school tuition for students who are located in rural parts of the state.

One of the families paid for tuition at a religious school with their own money, but would have liked to use a voucher. Another family used a voucher to send their child to a secular private school, but would have preferred a religious school. By state law, religious private schools are ineligible to receive funding from the voucher program.

“The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools — so long as the schools are not religious,” wrote Roberts. “That is discrimination against religion.”

The court’s three liberal judges disagreed. In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that Maine had actually treated students eligible for a voucher the same as all the other students in the state — eligible for a publicly funded secular education, but not a publicly funded religious education.

“Maine has promised all children within the State the right to receive a free public education,” Breyer wrote. “In fulfilling this promise, Maine endeavors to provide children the religiously neutral education required in public school systems.”

The court’s liberal justices also raised concerns about discrimination in private schools. They pointed out that the schools that the plaintiffs’ children attend or would like to attend have policies that bar gay teachers and students.

“While purporting to protect against discrimination of one kind, the Court requires Maine to fund what many of its citizens believe to be discrimination of other kinds,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in another dissent.

It’s not clear whether the ruling would clear the way for these particular schools to participate in the state’s voucher program, since Maine law generally bars discrimination based on sexual orientation. That itself could be subject to further litigation.

Tuesday’s decision was widely expected and follows similar cases in 2017 and 2020.

This case won’t have much immediate impact beyond Maine, though.

That’s because nearly all private school choice programs already allow religious schools to participate. Maine, as well as Vermont, which has a comparable program, are exceptions. (Vermont lost a similar lawsuit recently, and the state legislature has been wrestling with how exactly to include religious schools.)

Critically, the decision does not require states to offer public funds to private schools. In his majority opinion, Roberts reiterated something he wrote in the 2020 case: “A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

This is a blow to private school advocates in Michigan, including former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos who is backing an effort to create a tax-credit funded voucher program there. The state’s constitution bars aid to private schools, religious and non-religious alike, and that appears to be permissible under today’s decision.

Still, Michigan school choice advocates have filed their own federal lawsuit arguing that the barring aid to private schools is unconstitutional. They may draw on aspects of the latest Supreme Court decision to bolster their case.

Meanwhile, there may also be an opening for religious charter schools, a possibility noted in Breyer’s dissent. Presently, charter schools across the country must be secular in their operation and instruction. This decision doesn’t change that, but some legal scholars say in future cases, the same logic could be applied to charter schools.

Might prohibiting religious charter schools amount to an illegal form of discrimination under the Constitution? The Supreme Court may eventually have to answer that question.

“Charter schools are the next frontier,” Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut, previously told Chalkbeat.

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

‘The next frontier’: Supreme Court case could open door to religious charter schools

2022-02-24T20:08:53+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free newsletter to keep up with how public education is changing.

An upcoming Supreme Court decision about school vouchers could have a broader impact in the decades ahead, creating an opening for Christian, Jewish, or other religious charter schools.

In the coming months, legal observers expect the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a Maine rule barring religious private schools from participating in its voucher program. That decision would definitively establish that states offering money to private schools have to allow religious schools into those programs, too.

Some legal scholars say that raises a new question. If a state can’t keep a private religious school out of its voucher program, can it stop a religious school from participating in its charter school program?

“Charter schools are the next frontier,” Preston Green, an education law professor at the University of Connecticut. Compared to school vouchers, “this could actually be more of a win for religious entities if they can get it.”

The idea has the potential to redefine charter schools and open up a major funding source for religious schools, which have lost students over the last few decades. But the concept faces a long legal road, a host of practical questions, and opposition from major charter school groups.

“The bottom line is: Charter schools, as public schools, can never be religious institutions,” said Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “And anyone who says differently is flat-out wrong.”

For two decades, the legal ground has been shifting to make religious charter schools possible

The Supreme Court has grown increasingly sympathetic to the idea of using public funds for religious education.

“That shift in a two decade period really is an astonishing transformation,” said Justin Driver, a Yale law professor who wrote a book about education law.

The case now before the Supreme Court involves a Maine program, dating back to the 19th century, that pays for students in rural areas without a nearby public high school to attend another school of their choice. In 1980, the state barred religious schools from participating, citing concerns about the separation of church and state.

In 2002, though, a closely divided Supreme Court said it was OK for states like Maine to issue vouchers that parents could use at religious schools.

Eventually, the court went further. In successive cases in 2017 and 2020, the justices said that states could not exclude religious schools from a generally available program. Doing so, they concluded, amounted to religious discrimination.

These rulings haven’t affected many states yet. But one justice has hinted that the decisions could have broader implications down the line. In his dissent in the 2020 case, Justice Stephen Breyer asked, “What about charter schools?”

Garnett, the Notre Dame law professor, has one potential answer.

It’s well established that the government cannot run a religious school, but a private entity can, she said in a recent report for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Despite being defined as “public” in state laws, Garnett continues, charter schools are not run by the government; they are run by private, unelected boards, typically organized as nonprofits.

That means, she says, charter schools can be religious, and state laws prohibiting religious charter schools — in place in every state where charters exist — are vulnerable.

(Some states already allow religious institutions to run secular charter schools. Garnett’s argument is farther-reaching: that a charter school where religion is taught as the truth should be allowed.)

Other legal scholars have made similar arguments.

“At least based on the court’s reasoning, it would be difficult to exclude religious institutions that would want to have explicitly religious charter schools,” Joshua Dunn, a University of Colorado Colorado Springs political science professor, said in a recent podcast.

Helping their case: despite the “public” label, the legal system remains unsettled on exactly how public charter schools are. For instance, a federal court recently ruled that a North Carolina charter school is not a “state actor,” although the case is still being appealed.

If religious charter schools clear legal obstacles, there are also practical and political reasons that they might be appealing to school leaders.

Charter schools are typically more generously funded than voucher programs, and are allowed in many more states. At the same time, many private religious schools, particularly Catholic schools, have been losing students for decades. For religious education providers that might otherwise face closure, a charter school structure could make sense.

“The situation, for many religious schools, is a matter of life and death,” wrote Garnett.

The politics of school choice are also changing in a way that might benefit the idea of religious charter schools. Some school choice advocates on the right are eager to embrace culture war issues — opposition to teaching “critical race theory” and about LGBTQ people — to expand appeal in red states. Religious charter schools could be one way to do that.

“It’s now homeschooling, faith, values, and anger at the public-school establishment that dominate talk of school choice,” Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute wrote in a piece urging charter advocates to consider religious charters.

There have been early signs of interest. Under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration’s education department said in 2020 it would allow religious organizations to apply for a federal charter school grant program, although the administration didn’t go so far to say that teaching religion was allowed.

Religious charter schools are no sure thing

But religious charter schools are far from a foregone conclusion.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is the fact that in America, public schools can’t be religious‚ and charter schools are still defined in state statute as public. They also act as public in some key ways. Charter schools have to take state tests, can’t discriminate in admissions, and often are subject to some form of public records laws.

“You have to make the argument that these schools are actually private, not public, looking at how they are operated,” said Green.

Charter school groups have argued that the schools are indeed public for legal purposes and that the recent Supreme Court cases don’t apply to charter schools.

“All charter schools are public schools,” said Rees of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. “Charter schools have never been able to, and cannot now, endorse a specific religion.”

Religious charter schools would also open up other legal issues. Could such schools admit students based on religious affiliation? Could they bar students or teachers based on sexual orientation and gender identity?

A ruling requiring states to approve religious charter schools also would be much more far-reaching than the recent cases involving private schools. Even a conservative court might be reluctant to sweep aside dozens of states’ charter school laws that ban religious association.

“A charter school would be a much harder case for the court,” acknowledged Garnett.

Then there are the political and practical barriers. Even if legally allowed, charter leaders may reject the idea. Legislators, especially in blue states, might try to put up other legal barriers or limit all charters.

“There would be a lot of pushback amongst a lot of folks in the charter space around this idea,” Karega Rausch, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, said at an event about religious charters.

Finally, it’s not even clear how many religious school operators would want to start a charter school, since they come with a slew of additional regulations. Historically, private schools leaders have blanched at any limits put on their admissions rules in particular.

“Some religious providers would undoubtedly want to become charter schools,” said Garnett. “Many would not and they would go it alone.”

Matt Barnum is a national reporter covering education policy, politics, and research. Contact him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org.

DeVos will let religious groups apply for charter grants, opening up new legal battlefront

2020-10-29T18:55:35+00:00

The law is clear: In order to be eligible for federal charter grants, charter schools must not be “affiliated with a sectarian school or religious institution.”

But Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said earlier this week that she will no longer enforce this prohibition. Religious organizations should feel free to apply for federal money to open charter schools, she said, and a recent Supreme Court ruling is on her side.

“Prohibiting religiously affiliated public charter schools is unconstitutional,” DeVos said at a forum in Kentucky. “The Department of Education in the Charter School Program will not discriminate and will allow for and welcome religiously affiliated applicants.”

It’s not clear that DeVos’s move will prompt immediate changes in who tries to start charter schools, and it could be reversed by a Biden administration if President Trump loses reelection next week. But it amounts to the first shot fired in what’s likely to be a lengthy legal battle over charter schools and religion in the wake of two recent Supreme Court decisions.

Those decisions focus on how private schools can access public money. Neither explicitly addresses charter schools. But an analysis by the U.S. Department of Justice after the first ruling — dated February of this year but released by the education department this week — concluded that barring religiously affiliated charter schools from receiving federal money is unconstitutional.

“Forbidding charter schools under the program from affiliating with religious organizations discriminates on the basis of religious status,” reads the document, signed by deputy assistant attorney general Henry Whitaker.

Preston Green, a education law professor at the University of Connecticut who has written extensively about the legal status of charter schools, agrees with the department’s analysis. “I think that legally they’re on strong ground,” he said.

He noted that the Trump administration’s analysis still doesn’t seem to allow for federal money for charter schools run in a religious manner, but said this could be a step in that direction. This “is a further advancement of what they want in the end, which I think is direct funding of religious education,” he said.

The nation’s over 7,000 charter schools are typically publicly funded and approved, operated by nonprofit boards, and defined in state and federal law as “public.”

It’s unclear whether any charter schools nationwide are currently affiliated with religious institutions, and if so, how many. Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said the organization does not know of any and does not track the issue.

Some charter schools have toed the church-state line, though. Last year, the U.S. Department of Education said it was fine for a Tennessee charter school that had promised to avoid teaching topics considered by the Catholic church to be “gravely immoral” to receive federal money. Hillsdale College — a Christian school where DeVos recently spoke — runs an initiative that helps create charter schools and then provides them with curriculum and teacher training.

A number of states bar religious organizations from directly running charter schools over concerns about the separation of church and state.

But the two recent cases have indicated that the Supreme Court is skeptical of restrictions that keep religiously affiliated schools from receiving benefits, including public funding, available to other schools.

In 2017, the court ruled that Missouri could not bar religious private schools from receiving public money for playground resurfacing simply because they were religious. In June, the Court struck down a Montana rule that barred religious private schools from participating in a tax-credit funded voucher program. (In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the logic would seem to apply to charter schools, though the majority opinion doesn’t mention them.)

DeVos’ announcement won’t directly affect state prohibitions on charter schools affiliated with a religious organization, but signals they could be subject to legal challenge.

It also doesn’t mean that any charters would be allowed to be truly religious schools. The Justice Department’s analysis does not indicate that a charter school could provide religious education, only that they could be run by a religious organization.

Rees says it should stay that way. “Of course charter schools are always fully public schools and must observe the separation of church and state guidelines that all public schools observe,” she said in a statement.

Others want charter schools to be able to go a step further.

“I would prefer religious schools to be religious,” Nicole Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame, said during a recent event discussing the possibility of religious charter schools.

She argues that since charter schools are generally run by private boards, rather than by governments, they aren’t “the state” at all — and thus can’t violate the separation of church and state. “If they’re private actors and they are schools of choice, then I think they can be authentically religious,” she said.

Charter schools may be an appealing vehicle for creating a religious school because, unlike most private schools, they are supported with substantial public funding. But they also come with more regulations, like state testing mandates and rules barring selective admissions or discrimination based on sexual orientation.

This highlights a further complication: what happens if charter school regulations clash with religious practices?

“There are going to be enormous challenges,” Karega Rausch, the president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, said at the same event. “Who’s allowed to come to school? Who gets preferential or not access? Who’s allowed to teach? Who’s allowed to get hired and fired, and importantly, for what reasons?”

All of these issues could take time to wind their way through the courts. “I expect this would be tied up in litigation for a long time,” said Garnett.

Tennessee hopes fears of religious indoctrination will diminish with new social studies standards

2019-07-08T19:35:45+00:00

When Tennessee’s middle school social studies teachers return to their classrooms this August, they’ll still be required to teach about world religions. But the new state standards leave less room for interpretation.

“We’re not here to indoctrinate our students, but to educate them,” social studies teacher Zan Brennan said during a recent two-day teacher training she attended at Arlington High School, just outside of Memphis.

“A lot of students are curious about the different religions,” added Brennan, who works at Memphis Business Academy, as she joined dozens of other social studies teachers from across West Tennessee last month to learn about changes to the state’s social studies standards. The requirements set the framework for individual districts, schools and teachers to shape instruction and curriculum.

Aside from revisions to seventh-grade benchmarks for teaching about world religions, the standards will seem familiar for the most part, with a few exceptions. Two examples: All fifth-graders will learn about Tennessee history in a new, self-contained course. Peppered throughout the standards for multiple grades are mentions of historically underemphasized figures such as black entrepreneur and activist Madam C.J. Walker. Her story is now part of the 11th-grade U.S. history standards.

The rollout will mark the end of a four-year-long saga of reviewing and revising Tennessee’s social studies standards, which was catalyzed in part by controversy over how world religions were being taught.

Middle school social studies teachers Zan Brennan and Chloe Smuk discuss the new state standards during their lunch break at a teacher training held in June at Arlington High School.

In 2015, the fine line between education and indoctrination grabbed national headlines and the attention of some school board members and state lawmakers as parents complained about the way that Islam was being taught. In a state where Christianity is the dominant religion, the teaching of Islam was at the center of the controversy.

“It is reprehensible that our school system has exhibited this double-standard, more concerned with teaching the practices of Islam than the history of Christianity,” then-U.S. Rep Marsha Blackburn said at the time. “Tennessee parents have a right to be outraged and I stand by them in this fight.”

The old middle school standards included varying guidelines on how to address the six world religions taught in world history courses — Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism.

“We have social studies standards that cover world religions, but we are explicit in those standards that no proselytization can take place,” said Nathan James, legal director of the Tennessee State Board of Education, which ordered the review. “We’re not in the business of making new members of any particular faith … I would argue that was clear before, but nothing’s clear for everybody.”

Nonetheless, the disputes contributed to an early revamp of the 2014 social studies standards, which were only two years old at the time.

Standards for all subjects are typically revised every six years, but public concerns over religion and less-talked-about, yet widespread teacher qualms over the sheer volume of standards set that process in motion in late 2015.

The state assembled public officials and teams of K-12 and post-secondary educators to review a total of 141,000 pieces of public feedback to shape the changes.

One of the results of that process is clearer standards for teaching religion. Each of the six creeds students are required to learn about now follow the exact same formula: origins, key people, sacred texts and basic beliefs.

“The standards weren’t biased before, but now it’s more specific that each religion needs to be covered a certain way,” Brennan said.

Bill Carey, who founded the nonprofit Tennessee History for Kids and served on the 10-member social studies standards recommendation committee, said that was one of the intentions of the rewrite. “We wanted to make it clear to teachers that they’re just supposed to teach the story of the religion. When I first saw the old standards [in 2014], my first thought was we’re going to see a lawsuit filed because the standards were so broad.”

The new standards have tightened the lid on that concern, but “there are some people who will make that complaint or accusation no matter what’s in the standards,” he added.

Religion-related standards aren’t the only changes teachers and students will see starting this fall. Amid the years-long standards rewrite, the Tennessee General Assembly in 2017 passed a law mandating a specific state history course be added to the lineup of required social studies courses. In recent years, state history has been integrated throughout the standards. But starting this school year students will take the new state history course in the second half of the fifth grade.

Arlington High School, just outside of Memphis, was host to one of 11 state social standards teacher trainings this June.

“That’s a big change because in the past, fourth-grade teachers had to teach U.S. and Tennessee history to 1850,” Carey said. “Fifth-grade teachers taught [from] 1850 to the present. As a result of these changes, every fourth-grade teacher will now have to teach the Civil War and most of them have never done that. Every fifth-grade teacher in the state will now have to teach a standalone Tennessee history course and most of them have never done that.”

Shelby County Schools spokesperson Jerica Phillips said in an email that “because of the shift in the content for each grade, gaps could occur for the 2019-2020 school year.” Last spring, the state’s education department provided the district with “gap units” to fill in some of those holes. Fourth- and fifth-grade social studies teachers will use those same units to get students up to speed during the first few weeks of this coming school year.

But across K-12, condensing the standards, affording flexibility in the curriculum for individual class needs, and emphasizing more analytical and critical thinking skills are some of the biggest differences.

“The main goals we had at the start of the process was to streamline the standards. That was a lot of content to cover,” said Brian Davis, who served on the educator advisory team, which took the first pass at the public comments and made recommendations to the standards recommendations committee. “In 11th-grade U.S. history, for example, we narrowed it down from 112 to 95 standards. I’d still like to see fewer standards.”

Davis was a teacher at Whitehaven High School in Memphis when he first got involved in the revision process in the summer of 2016. He’s now the high school social studies adviser for Shelby County Schools.

“We also took out a lot of the prescribed curriculum in a lot of the standards. For instance, the third standard in ninth-grade world history was to do a research project on the French Revolution. That was problematic because three weeks into school you had students doing a major project they might not be prepared for,” Davis said. “Specific projects and assignments largely disappeared from standards, and teachers have more autonomy in the classroom.”

How educators should frame the discussion about a specific standard — whether through an economic, geographic, or political lens — is now more prominently displayed.

“Once you start getting all these different things tied together, the kids are going to be able make deeper connections about how the past affects the present,” said Cordova High School history teacher Brian Huber, who led one of the standards training sessions.

Teachers who have seen the new standards agree say they are better, said Rafael Rodriguez, a history teacher at Halls High School in Lauderdale County. “They make more sense, and they’re easier to use as a teacher,” he said. “If I would have had these last year, it would have helped. It’s a little more clear.”

Feds give green light to controversial contract between Memphis charter school and Catholic diocese

2019-07-04T00:05:37+00:00

The U.S. Department of Education said a charter school network’s lease prohibiting it from teaching anything considered “gravely immoral” by the Catholic Church does not violate federal guidelines, state officials wrote in an email obtained by Chalkbeat.

The federal guidance removes the final hurdle for Compass Community Schools to open its six campuses across Memphis on July 31 in former Catholic school buildings. The opinion also confirms the new network’s eligibility to receive $600,000 per school in federal grants for “promising” new charter schools.

“As presented to the department, the lease provides that the charter school will comply with all applicable federal laws and regulations,” said Liz Hill, of the U.S. Department of Education, in an email to Chalkbeat. “A charter school may lease space from a religious organization so long as the charter school remains non-religious in all respects.”

Other experts suggested the charter network may be vulnerable to a lawsuit.

Preston Green, a University of Connecticut professor, whose 2001 law review article explored the legal questions of churches operating charter schools, said the ban on “gravely immoral” teaching or activities adds up to the church giving orders.

“The church is dictating what is taught or done,” Green said of the Memphis charter network’s lease with the diocese. “That seems like a conflict under the [U.S. Constitution’s] establishment clause to me,” which prohibits the government from favoring a religion.

Students leave the Catholic High School in Memphis at the end of the school day. The entire Memphis Catholic Jubilee Schools network, along with St. Michael Catholic School, closed at the end of the 2018-19 school year.

In late May, state leaders met with James Blew, a senior federal Education Department official who previously worked for groups promoting charters, to discuss the Compass lease, according to a June 10 email to school officials.

Katie Poulos, the state’s chief schools officer, said to him, “we appreciate your guidance that there is no conflict between the department’s guidance … and Compass Community Schools’ lease with the Diocese of Memphis,” according to an email.

Lisa Scruggs, a Chicago lawyer who has helped charter schools and their authorizers, said charter schools may lease from churches. Constitutional limits on the government endorsing a religion come into play only when the church restricts a building’s use based on religious beliefs.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled in scenarios like this and tends to work on a case-by-case basis, she said.

Still, the Memphis case gives Scruggs pause.

“The language on its face — there’s no doubt in my mind it raises serious questions and is something that puts the relationship at risk of more scrutiny and potential litigation,” said Scruggs, who wrote a 2015 guide for charter schools using facilities owned by religious groups for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.

She cited the example of a New Jersey charter school that in May was forced to remove student art commemorating gay artist Keith Haring in a Catholic Church-owned building. In ordering the school to remove the mural, a priest cited a provision in the charter school’s lease similar to the morality clause in the Compass Schools’ lease.

This former Catholic school in Binghampton is one of six that will open as a charter school later this month.

With less access to facilities than their traditional school counterparts, charter schools sometimes have to navigate relationships with religious groups, Scruggs said. Among several Memphis charter schools operating in churches, Circles of Success Learning Academy, run by a community development organization in South Memphis, occupies space in St. Andrew’s AME Church.

Scruggs said the federal government might have a constitutionally sound reason for its decision on the lease. But Hill, the Education Department’s spokeswoman, didn’t elaborate on the department’s reasoning, in response to a Chalkbeat email.

The nation’s top education officials also said the Memphis Diocese’s rule barring Compass Community Schools from removing statues, crucifixes, and other religious symbols inside the buildings or covering any symbols outside the building did not conflict with federal regulations.

That point is moot, though, because the previous tenants, Jubilee Catholic Schools Network, already removed all religious symbols from the hallways, classrooms, and cafeterias, said Whitney Albert, a spokeswoman for the charter network.

The Memphis lease has attracted the attention of a national nonprofit that advocates for stricter separation between religious activity and schools. The Center for Inquiry sent a letter to Tennessee’s attorney general in March after the lease agreement controversy first became public.

Nicholas Little, the organization’s vice president and legal director, said he was “extremely concerned” about the restrictions in the leases.

“Such a commitment to a religious group to refrain from teaching children anything which might involve a challenge to a church’s doctrine violates the Constitution,” the letter read. “It is important that the determination of what is taught in our public schools is made by democratic bodies and representatives of all of our people, not by religious groups representing a particular belief system.”

The charter network has said its schools are public and will “adhere to all Tennessee state laws and standards,” according to Poulos’ email.

What needs to happen for a group of Memphis Catholic schools to become charters

2018-01-31T00:58:46+00:00

No shortage of things must happen for a group of financially strapped Memphis Catholic schools to be transformed into what would be the city’s largest charter school network.

A new or existing charter organization would need to step up to run the schools, and the applicant would need to navigate a complicated approval process and win over a school district that is asking more of charters and increasingly wary of losing students.

The formerly Catholic schools would need to shed a core piece of their identity — religion — even while they could keep the same teachers.

With state lawmakers again ruling out a private school voucher program that could keep the schools afloat, diocesan officials say they have no choice but to close the schools at the end of next school year and seek a path taken by other U.S. Catholic dioceses suffering plummeting enrollment in their schools.

Jubilee Catholic Schools Network announced last week its plans to close nine schools that serve mostly low-income students and another Catholic school that received substantial funding from the organization.

Catholic school enrollment nationwide has dropped steadily from its peak in the 1960s of 5.2 million to 1.8 million students last school year, according to the National Catholic Educational Association.

In the late 2000s, several schools in Washington, D.C., Indianapolis, and Miami shed their Catholic affiliation and reopened as charter schools. After the move, the schools reported higher student enrollment and diversity, according to an 2014 analysis by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, which advocates for school choice, including vouchers. (The organization, which has since changed its name to EdChoice, is a financial supporter of Chalkbeat. You can see our full list of supporters here.)

Most of the 18 schools examined retained many of the same employees, but replaced religious aspects such as Bible lessons with lessons on the school’s core values, which is more common in charter schools.

“Although the number of private schools undergoing a similar conversion is small, trends suggest that absent mechanisms to lower the cost of private schooling for consumers, this behavior may increase in the future,” the report read.

In Tennessee, converting any school into a charter requires a hefty application process through a local school district.

“There’s no magic button to convert an existing school to a charter school. In fact, state law prohibits this from happening,” said Maya Bugg, CEO of the Tennessee Charter School Center. “If Jubilee schools or any other entity is interested in starting a charter school, they would have to go through the entire process as if they never existed — beginning with a letter of intent and then developing and submitting their application to their local authorizer.”

To receive federal funding as public schools do, there must be a clear break from religious affiliation. The new organization must hold a lottery just like any other charter school, meaning no student previously enrolled in the private school is guaranteed a spot.

“However, the statute does not prohibit a newly created charter school from using resources previously used by a closed private school, including hiring teachers or enrolling students from the closed private school,” according to guidance from the U.S. Department of Education.

“There’s no magic button to convert an existing school to a charter school. In fact, state law prohibits this from happening.”

Maya Bugg, CEO, Tennessee Charter School Center

To help pass legal muster, parochial schools should adopt a secular curriculum, change their names, and keep a separate accounting system, said Preston Green, a professor at the University of Connecticut who explored the legal questions of churches operating charter schools in a 2001 law review article. He also expects religious schools losing enrollment to take this route as the “holy grail” of school choice — vouchers — becomes less viable.

“Charters are an easier sell if they offer it within the public system,” Green told Chalkbeat. “I think that vouchers can be a tough sell because people become more concerned about the public school system especially when talking about diverting funds. … So if you have these schools operating within the school system, you don’t have that diversion.”

Interaction with religious organizations and charter schools is not new in Memphis. For example, a community development organization in South Memphis created by St. Andrew’s AME Church operates the Circles of Success Learning Academy charter school and is housed inside the church.

Multi-site charter schools operate in Memphis, but none are as large as the Jubilee group of schools. Nor have so many charter schools from one operator opened in Memphis at once.

The district doubled the size of its charter office last year in an attempt to hold the burgeoning sector more accountable. At the same time, the district established more specific ground rules for its 51 charters on sticky issues like accountability, facilities, and funding. Last year, the school board approved just three charter schools out of 14 applicants, down from seven the year before.

The school system is also fighting to retain enrollment in its directly run schools. The conversion could run counter to the wishes of school board members who have long lamented that charters can open anywhere in the city without first considering if a neighborhood already has too many schools in the area.

Last year, the district’s charter office required applicants to identify where they hope to locate. In initial recommendations, district administrators take into consideration the charter’s proximity to district-run schools, though that has yet to be a deciding factor in approving a charter.

Jubilee’s schools are scattered throughout the city, and the Catholic network’s board members hope the charter schools would operate in the same buildings and retain most of the students.

Bugg said Jubilee’s plan is not a shoo-in, especially as her organization and others have increasingly pushed for high standards for charter applications.

“The goal is not to open charters for the sake of charters, which is why the application process is so robust and detailed,” she said. “We ultimately want to see schools and students succeed. The critical eye and consideration that is applied to every application is key to ensuring that high-quality schools open and are positioned for success and sustainability from the beginning.”

Detroit district aims for faith-based partnerships for every school to support student needs

2018-01-19T00:30:13+00:00

Each Detroit public school might soon have its own church, synagogue, mosque, temple, chapel, or parish as a partner.

The district on Thursday announced an initiative to connect every district school with a faith-based community partner to help with academic support, student basic needs, and personal and career development, among other services.

The district is now trying to determine which schools have a defined partnership with a religious institution, but estimates that 25 to 30 percent of schools already do. Sharlonda Buckman, senior executive director of family and community engagement, said that the district hopes that, by the end of the year, every one of its 106 schools “has a religious partner working with them in tandem toward the goal of helping our children achieve.”

The program was announced at a press conference at the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Art in Midtown, attended by educators, school board members, and invited guests.

“It doesn’t surprise me when I look around the room and see our religious leaders, because you guys, for a long time, have been investing in our children and our people, and it’s been an informal effort,” Buckman said. “You’ve worked with a number of our schools across the district, so today we recognize that we don’t need to do it informally anymore — we need to make this a formal part of how we move this district forward.”

The district is not unique in its approach: church-school partnerships are common across the country and in the state. The national partnering organization Kids Hope USA is based near Holland, Michigan. Supporters believe that stronger faith-school ties will not only improve local support for schools, but also help provide vital services for children and a more stable personal and family foundation upon which learning could take place.

District leaders “cannot lift our children up to their full potential by themselves,” Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said at the press conference. “We need help in that work.”

The district is looking to the faith-based partners to provide services such as tutoring, coaching, chaperoning; deliver before and after school support; donate uniforms and other goods; and highlight teachers at their institutions through announcements and bulletins.

R. Khari Brown, a professor of sociology at Wayne State, said the faith community is already deeply ingrained in Detroit in a variety of ways.

“There are a lot of community centers that closed down over the years in the city, and most churches in the city provide some sort of programming,” he said. “They provide backpacks and school supplies, so [the partnership] makes sense.”

Religion is also a large part of the culture of many African Americans, he said, and a significant force in a district where 81 percent of the students were black in 2016-2017.

“Most African Americans want their churches to be involved on the ills that disproportionately affect black people.” he said.

While other communities might balk at such intermingling of church and state, Brown said he believes that it is a “non issue” in this case because the religious institutions are not receiving money from the district.

The ACLU of Michigan said it had no comment at this time but that the organization hopes to “continue to learn more” about the district’s initiative.

Vitti said a more explicit district-faith community partnership could provide both protection and support for Detroit’s children.

“What I’m talking about is developing a stronger safety net to ensure that what students are not receiving in homes, what students are not receiving in school, can be addressed through the faith-based community,” Vitti said. “When we go back to when the city was at its peak, we worked together as a team to lift children up. When children fell through the cracks, there was a safety net to catch them and lift them back up. That happened through the school system, through the churches, the synagogues.”

Vitti said the initiative is part of his larger effort to align schools and the community more closely. Since starting in his position as superintendent in May of last year, he has been pressing programs like the parent academy.

The academy will provide parents with lessons on subjects like what to ask during parent-teacher conferences, how to create stronger readers, how to fill out FAFSA paperwork, and even how to print a resume. Vitti said most of all, it would empower parents to pursue educational goals for their children, even if they weren’t the best students themselves.

“Every parent knows education is important, but parents don’t know how to navigate the system often, and they feel hypocritical when they push their children when they know they didn’t do well in school,” he said.

Vitti said he envisions a time when faith-based institutions could house some of the parent services.

He said he also sees the faith community working side by side with the district’s 5,000 role models initiative. The program is recruiting volunteers to work with middle and high school African American and Hispanic students, and plans to have sponsors in each school to work with students daily, taking them on field trips and providing an open line of communication.

Churches running charter schools? The latest Supreme Court decision could open the door in some states

2017-07-09T23:00:39+00:00

Reverend Michael Faulkner wanted to start a charter school through his church in Harlem. But there was a problem: New York law bars religious denominations from running charters, even if, as Faulkner promised, the school would teach a secular curriculum.

So Faulkner — a one-time NFL player who ran for Congress in 2010 — and his church sued.

“The New York Charter Schools Act is nothing more than an attempt by the State to erect a barrier for those who express their religious beliefs from access to public resources that are generally available to all others,” read the 2007 complaint.

The suit was voluntarily dismissed in 2009, and Faulkner, now running for city comptroller, described it as “dormant.” But a recent Supreme Court decision might mean that suits like that one have a better chance of prevailing.

Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer invalidated a Missouri rule banning a religious school from participating in a public program, and experts immediately noted it could be used to eliminate legal barriers to private school voucher programs. The implications for charter schools drew less attention.

But two legal scholars tell Chalkbeat that the ruling might also pave the way for more charter schools operated by religious groups, including churches.

“Trinity Lutheran opens the door because it states simply that if a religious entity is otherwise qualified to take part in a public benefit program, then it cannot be prohibited solely on the basis of its religious affiliation,” said University of Connecticut professor Preston Green.

Aaron Saiger, a law professor at Fordham University, agreed.

“I have no doubt that this case makes the door more open than it was a month ago,” said Saiger, who wrote a 2013 law review article on religious charters.

If it became easier for religious institutions to run charter schools, it would mark a significant change in several states. According to Green, who raised the idea of charters run by churches in a 2001 law review article, 10 states and Washington D.C. explicitly bar charters from being run by or affiliated with a religious entity.

Green and Saiger say those prohibitions might be threatened by the Supreme Court’s latest ruling. The decision could also affect rules on whether religious entities can authorize charter schools; in Indiana, a lawsuit was recently filed to stop a Christian college and seminary from overseeing charters.

If states or the court were to apply the Trinity Lutheran logic to charter schools, it would not necessarily mean that the schools could teach religion or offer religious services, only that they could be operated by a religious institution. All states with charter laws mandate that they maintain secular rules and a secular curriculum.

The Trinity Lutheran case focused on whether Missouri could bar a church-run preschool from participating in a program for resurfacing playgrounds. Missouri denied the school’s application, consistent with the state’s Blaine Amendment, which prohibits public money from going to religious institutions — a rule most states, including New York, have adopted.

The Supreme Court ruled that this amounted to religious discrimination and was thus unconstitutional. In a footnote, though, the decision was explicitly limited to the situation at hand. (Two conservative justices, who were part of the majority, disavowed that aspect of the opinion.)

The narrow ruling means the impact of Trinity Lutheran won’t be immediately felt, and that it will turn on further interpretation from lower courts, state legislators, and perhaps ultimately another Supreme Court case.

“While the court limited the decision in a footnote to the facts of that case … the court does go on to talk about a number of cases where it lays out the general proposition that religious entities cannot be discriminated against,” Green said.

Not everyone agrees that the recent opinion might affect charters. Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, which advocates for a strict separation of church and state, said Trinity Lutheran “shouldn’t open the door to those sorts of claims.”

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that there are heightened concerns with protecting public school students from government-sponsored religion,” he said.

Green does note one reason the Trinity Lutheran logic might not apply to charter schools: They are usually defined in statute as public schools. That means having an affiliation with a religious institution could raise greater church-and-state issues than the Trinity Lutheran case, where a private school was simply seeking to receive a public benefit.

Saiger, though, suggests that the implications of Trinity Lutheran might be even further-reaching than who gets to run a charter school. In his view, the case also raises the possibility of charters that are explicitly religious and teach a sectarian curriculum.

“I think the Trinity case makes it much easier to argue that such schools should be eligible for government support for the secular side of their mission,” he said.

There does not appear to be any data on how many existing charters have a religious association, but the line between church and charter school can be blurry in some cases.

For instance, some private Catholic schools have converted into charters; a 2014 report examined 18 schools across three states that had undergone this conversion.

Chalkbeat previously reported on a network of Michigan charter schools run by an organization that used to oversee private Christian schools, some of which converted into charters. The schools continue to emphasize character traits taken from the Bible, including faithfulness, though the schools no longer explicitly connect them to biblical passages.

A 2008 Yale Law Review article points to other examples, like Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a charter school in Minnesota:

“Children fast during Ramadan, and the cafeteria serves halal food throughout the year. Vacations take place on Muslim holidays. Students avoid stepping on the carpeted prayer area at the school’s center as they walk to class. Most significantly, classes break for early afternoon prayers; almost all students participate, although the school does not officially conduct them.”

Minnesota, like Michigan, prohibits religious entities from running charters. Tarek ibn Ziyad’s leaders contended that their school was nonsectarian, but it was nevertheless sued by the ACLU in Minnesota for acting as a publicly funded religious school. The school was eventually forced to shut down in 2011 after a state law prohibited out-of-state charter authorizers; it had been overseen by an Islamic humanitarian group based in Washington D.C.

Faulkner, for his part, said that charters should be required to maintain non-religious rules and a secular curriculum. He believes that religious institutions can do that.

“Just because it’s religiously affiliated doesn’t mean it’s going to … teach a particular religion,” he said.

The backdoor voucher? How a Detroit school created to lift up a ‘Christ-centered culture’ found a way to get public dollars

2017-05-18T19:09:34+00:00

When prospective families arrived at Cornerstone Schools’ flagship campus on Nevada Street last month, they were greeted by a staff primed to woo and sell.

Folding chairs had been placed in the tidy front entrance of the northeast Detroit school, and one by one, administrators stood up to speak about the rich culture and strong curriculum that parents and children had come to know and love since the religious school opened in 1991.

“You know, when you come in the fall, we’re going to have a team of parents waiting for you to teach you how to do things because there’s a way to do things. Just like when you go to a church or join a new group,” said Candace Brockman, the primary school principal and soon to be K-8 leader, to the crowd of potential families.

In March, Cornerstone announced that starting next year, its flagship private Christian school would stop providing primary and middle school classes. Instead, a charter, employing the same staff and using the same curriculum, would take over. Families from the religious school would help new families get to know the new school, Brockman explained. The words “Centers of Hope” glimmered in gold typeface above her as she spoke.

“They are going to make sure you understand the history and how they do things and that’s how we’re going to do it here,” she said. “You are going to have to get with our program.”

The history of Cornerstone is clear: The network of schools was started in 1991 by local attorney Clark Durant in response to a speech given by the city’s then-archbishop Adam Maida to the Detroit Economic Club. But how the families Brockman was addressing would get with the program — at least as it exists today — is less straightforward. Although the schools’ genesis was Christ-driven, nearly three decades after its creation, four of Cornerstone’s five schools are charters, which by law cannot teach religion.

And starting next year, the program is even more ambiguous. The last standing private, pre-K through 12th-grade Christian school, the one Brockman was presenting at, will be undergoing its own conversion.

Pinpointing where the religious school ended and the charter school began was difficult. Parents sitting in the room may have wondered: Am I at a meeting with Cornerstone Nevada, the flagship, independent, religious school? Or am I listening to a talk about Cornerstone Jefferson-Douglass Academy, the soon-to-open public charter school? The two entities couldn’t help but brush against each other.

Following Brockman’s presentation, parents were invited to come forward and pick up enrollment information for the public charter school. Making their way to the front of the room, families scooped up documents from a table brandishing the private school’s slogan, “Faith. Family. Culture.” Children grabbed bookmarks that showcased the Cornerstone schools’ principles — love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Although posters and murals dotting the hallways made clear that these values came from Galatians 5:22, Fruit of the Spirit — the Apostle Paul’s nine traits of a Christian — the information was noticeably absent from the giveaways.

A hallway at the Cornerstone flagship campus showcasing the network’s guiding principles.

Cornerstone’s switch from private to charter raises thorny issues about the separation of church and state — and whether Michigan’s notoriously freewheeling charter sector is set up to safeguard it. It also highlights questions about privatization — whether the Cornerstone network is using its charter schools, and the public dollars they’ll bring in, to prop up their struggling religious school.

The network, and its portfolio of independent and publicly funded schools, offers an example of “the extreme difficulties private religious schools are going to confront if they are trying to become charter schools, and want in some way to maintain what they believe are their core values,” said Kary Moss of the American Civil Liberties Union, which lobbies to protect the First Amendment. “This is obviously a big problem in a state like Michigan where there is such a pro-charter movement and little regulation.”

U.S. law bars public schools from teaching religion. Voucher programs, which exist in 14 states and Washington, D.C., have blurred the boundaries by allowing parents to use public education funds to pay tuition at religious schools. But Michigan does not offer vouchers. Voters rejected the practice in 1970 and again in 2000 when now-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos helped to underwrite the ballot proposal and poured upwards of $12 million into the campaign.

As a result, there are no options for religious schools in the state to get public funds for instruction. It also means that religious schools that struggle financially have little choice but to close.

But the state’s chaotic school choice landscape offers a not-so-obvious loophole: Schools can shop for an authorizer to reopen as a charter school, allowing them to receive public funds in exchange for accountability tied to student learning. The downside: They must drop their religious affiliation and practices, and open up to all students.

That could be a tall order for Cornerstone, a 26-year old school network steeped in religious rhetoric and created for the express purpose of “lifting up a Christ-centered culture.” Brockman, like much of the current staff, says on the school’s website that she “considers it a blessing to be able to educate children in a learning environment that places Jesus Christ first.”

The network has transitioned from private to charter before — in 2009 they converted two of their religious schools into charters, and they’ve since opened two more. And their authorizer, Grand Valley State University, has found no problems with the Cornerstone charters overstepping church-state lines. Yet conversations with the school’s founder, Durant, highlight the needle-thin line they straddle.

“We are a little not-for-profit trying to do the great prophet’s work if you will. God’s work. To help these children have fulfilling lives,” Durant said in an interview with Catholic News Network last summer. He later defined a fulfilling life as “following the things Jesus would teach and to love God and to love others.”

The comments give insight into the intricacies and strength of Cornerstone’s religious roots. But they also just toe the line, never fully compromising the school’s secular status.

A big part of this is due to the outward-facing work of the network to still draw distinctions between its private and religious schools. Like the other charters, Cornerstone Jefferson-Douglass Academy will move from the purview of the Cornerstone Schools Association, the organization running the private school endeavors, to the Cornerstone Education Group, a management company that leads the network’s charters.

For example, the four charter schools adopted a brand-new curriculum, and while the schools continued to use the private schools’ principles — love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — charter leaders do not place them in the context of the Bible or make them as much of a focus in the school day.

“What you have to do with your charter school is you say ‘OK, what are the attributes then of the character that make it possible for a person to at least begin to appreciate?’” Durant said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “So what is it? It’s love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, all these things which, in a fulfilling life, if you had those virtues, you’d be an amazing human being.”

Durant, who received a contribution and public endorsement from DeVos when he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 2012, said he wants “every company, every organization” to hire his graduates, knowing that “they would infect the culture in a good way in those places.”

Still, the four charter schools, which fell in the 9th, 14th, 19th and 20th percentile according to the latest state rankings, have not hit the same threshold of success that the Cornerstone private school boasts. The low achievement, which Durant calls unacceptable, spurred a recent restructuring of the charters’ management company. A new CEO and chief academic officer were hired. The network has also been re-visioning what a Cornerstone charter school will look like, with Jefferson-Douglass Academy as a forthcoming case study.

A hallway at the Cornerstone flagship campus.

Unlike the other Cornerstone charter schools, Jefferson-Douglass Academy will keep the same curriculum the private school is currently using. Additionally, a Christ-centered class will be offered after school by a third party. Finally, the time slot that previously was saved for chapel and a “Life and Teachings of Jesus” course will stay on the schedule but be replaced with intensive character development.

The school is also in the process of re-thinking how they can make sure influential texts, such as the Bible, are still, legally, underscoring lessons.

“I think of the things that we’ve talked about a number of times and I am certainly interested in, and that is how can we be more intentional about what the kids get exposed to,” Durant said, adding that texts like Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech and Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural speech are chock-full of religious allusions that require an understanding of the Bible to fully comprehend.

“If you begin to understand what King said — the references he’s making, why he’s referencing the 40th chapter in Isaiah, why he’s doing these other things — and you have kids go and read that stuff,” Durant said.

And while officials have been clear they understand the law and their First Amendment obligations, at a recent information session for religiously oriented Cornerstone Nevada parents, school officials emphasized that Cornerstone’s core principles and “culture” would go nowhere when the school transitions to a charter.

“We want to have as many of our kids that we can seeding the kindergarten each year,” said Ernestine Sanders, the CEO of the Cornerstone Schools Association, the private school network, explaining how the school’s current pre-K would remain private and Christian.

Current parents who expressed concerns about having students without the same background enter their children’s classes were reassured.

“Is the goal to put all the Cornerstone kids in one (class) and then everybody else in another?” a parent asked.

Sanders nodded. “That’s our goal,” she said.

Critics of allowing religious organizations to receive charters to run publicly funded schools say Cornerstone’s hybrid model is troubling. They note that even if the charter schools stay in their lane and don’t teach religion, public dollars will still be benefiting the private, religious institution.

The Nevada campus, which the private Cornerstone Schools Association owns, will be leased to the Jefferson-Douglass charter school for 13.5 percent of its yearly per-pupil funding — or an estimated $500,000. While Durant says the lease funds will be kept at an arms length from any religious programming done by the private Cornerstone Schools Association, it has been noted that the network’s only remaining religious school, the Nevada campus high school, plans to expand in the coming years.

These fuzzy lines are troubling to some.

“In the religious voucher setting, if you’re going to give vouchers to non-public schools you can trace the money and know what you’re getting,” said Peter Hammer, the director of the Damon Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University’s law school. “Here it’s like one of those bad science fiction movies where they take over the body.”

The authorizer that green-lighted Cornerstone’s most recent switch, Grand Rapids-based Grand Valley State University, has experience authorizing schools run by religiously oriented operators. In 1990, one of their schools, Vanguard Charter School Academy, was the subject of an ACLU legal challenge. Filed on behalf of five families with children at the school, the lawsuit charged that the campus allowed prayer in school, taught creationism, and held a mandatory staff retreat with religious overtones.

The suit was ultimately dismissed, after the school made some changes as a result of the lawsuit. But not before attracting national attention to the charter school, which was run by National Heritage Academies, a for-profit charter network founded by Michigan billionaire and DeVos friend J.C. Huizenga.

Now, Grand Valley State University, which authorizes over 65 charter schools across Michigan, says it plans to keep a close eye on the church-state issue. The group even plans to hire an outside consultant to make sure the school’s space is “free of inappropriate religious symbols,” said Alyson Murphy, the organization’s director of governance and compliance, in an email.

“We review the curriculum (I recently reviewed the Jefferson-Douglass curriculum with a fine-toothed comb) to ensure it is consistent with public school laws and we also have a school consultant who attends every board meeting,” Murphy wrote in an email. “We are working closely with the board’s legal counsel to make sure that all religious items are appropriately covered up/removed before students are in the building for class.”

Candace Brockman, the primary school principal and soon to be K-8 leader, speaks to the crowd of potential families.

Grand Valley officials appear to have their work cut out for them, far beyond the church-state issues.

Sanders told parents at the transition meeting that the school would likely not be able to serve students with all kinds of disabilities — something private schools can do but public schools cannot.

“If we figure that we can’t meet (a student’s) needs then we’ll have to say that, because sometimes kids come with some incredible challenges, and parents, we know that another school would be able to do that,” Sanders said, noting that the school’s principal was still doing interviews to assess potential students. “You know, like autism is an area where we would say we can’t do that, but there are schools in a public school that have to meet that need, but it’s not something we can do. So the more we know, the more we can say ‘You can come here.’”

Authorizers are responsible for ensuring that charter schools comply with federal anti-discrimination laws.

It will have to keep a close eye on the school’s academic performance, as the other charter schools in the Cornerstone network have struggled. One campus, Lincoln-King Academy, landed on the state’s priority list in 2014, and only recently came off of it. Today, it’s the highest ranked Cornerstone charter school, falling in the 20th percentile, but only after Sanders was hired to help bring up achievement and strengthen culture.

Finally, Grand Valley State University will have to make sure that the new school remains solvent — which could be a challenge if it fails to thrive in Detroit’s crowded charter landscape or if current parents grow alienated and leave.

Nicole Perry said she isn’t thinking about pulling her 10-year-old son Ayinde out of the school that will soon be known as Jefferson-Douglass. But she said she was dismayed to learn about the conversion, even though it will eliminate her tuition bill.

Perry, who is the current PTO president for the primary school, said she chose the school in 2012 because of its rigorous academics, small classes, and “Christ-centered learning environment.”

“I feel like with us becoming a charter school it’s like, ‘Oh, they’re like the other schools. When I used to say Cornerstone, it meant something different,” said Perry, who said she cried at the first meeting when she learned Cornerstone wouldn’t be a private school anymore.

Still, she will be there next year — one of the parents Brockman spoke of who will guide and welcome newcomers.

“No one likes change if it’s not what you want, but the way I see it we either have to get on board or get off in my mind,” she said. “My son has been here for six years, I know the lay of the land, I like the school. Let me take this new person and grab them and show them, why not help the situation rather than hurt it.”

Almost all the private schools getting vouchers in Indiana are religious. Here’s how one school ended up bucking the trend

2017-05-09T19:29:32+00:00

Seven-year-old Fallon breathed a sigh of frustration.

Her classmate, 11-year-old Myra, looked across the small round table where they were working. Fallon, sewing a pin cushion, was bent over her needle, struggling to slip thread through its eye.

“Here’s a tip,” said Myra. “You see how this is frayed at the end? … You’ve got to ever-so-carefully snip that frayed edge.”

Fallon and Myra are students at the School for Community Learning, a progressive private school on the north side of Indianapolis, where kids not only take math and reading but also study less conventional topics like sewing, birding and Hogwarts — classes that bring together children from kindergarten through middle school.

The School for Community Learning is unusual among Indiana private schools for not having a religious focus: More than 90 percent of the state’s private schools are religious, compared to 68 percent on average in the U.S.

But even within that small group, it’s notable as one of just seven non-religious private schools participating in Indiana’s expansive school voucher program this year.

Voucher advocates, including current U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, say they want families to be able to choose from a diverse marketplace of schools. But Indiana’s complicated school choice system offers little incentive for secular schools to take vouchers — leaving largely religious Christian schools benefiting from the state funds.

It works like this: Schools that want to serve poor students but don’t have a religious mission can open as charter schools — and bring in thousands of dollars more per student from the state.

Private schools that are not focused on serving poor students often charge upwards of $20,000 a year, more than four times the average voucher amount, and usually have their own scholarships to hand out.

And private schools with highly unusual approaches might not want to accept the stringent testing requirements that Indiana places on voucher schools.

The result: Of the 313 schools across Indiana that received vouchers this year, 306 are either part of a religious network, such as a Catholic diocese; have overtly religious names; or proclaim their faith on their websites, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. (Indiana doesn’t collect data on whether schools in the voucher program are religious.)

Of the seven voucher-funded schools that appear to be secular, three educate children who’ve struggled in other schools or have specific needs, such as dyslexia. That leaves just four secular private schools that serve typical students.

One of them is the School for Community Learning, whose unusual history offers insights into why there aren’t more schools like it taking vouchers in Indiana.

The school was born from the ashes of a charter school, the Project School, that the Indianapolis mayor’s office closed abruptly five years ago because of financial issues and low test scores. It was July, just weeks before the school year started, and teachers and parents had no idea where to turn.

A handful of teachers and about 25 families decided to start again without the backing of a charter authorizer, opening a private school with a focus on project-based learning. They had no campus, and no idea where they would get money. Parents paid whatever tuition they could afford and teachers barely earned anything, said Megan Howey Hughes, the director of the school.

“Parents also came in and they were the janitors,” she said. “If they couldn’t pay tuition, they did other work.”

After that first, cash-strapped, unsustainable year, everything changed: The school became eligible for the state’s vast new voucher program, and state funds started flowing. (Because of a quirk in Indiana policy, schools were required to operate for a year before receiving vouchers. That changed in recent weeks, when Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a bill that allows new schools to receive vouchers immediately.)

Most people starting non-religious schools don’t grapple with these intricacies. Instead, they’ve gone first to starting a charter school, which brings more state funds, and faster. Thirty-six new charter schools serving traditional-age students have opened in the last five years, according to state data.

In addition to getting more money per student from the state, being a charter school means there’s no perception that tuition could be a barrier. That’s a boon for schools trying to attract low-income parents.

“It would be great to be open to all children for free. That would be terrific,” said Patricia Wildhack, the school leader at School for Community Learning.

But the founders of the school passed up that extra money because they had such a bad experience with their prior charter school. They didn’t want to be under the control of an authorizer.

As a private school, “We get to make decisions from the board level down to the classroom level in a way that allows us even more flexibility,” Hughes said. “We are just us.”

This year, nearly 86 percent of the 70 students at the School for Community Learning are receiving state aid to help their families pay tuition, one of the highest rates in Indiana.

“We didn’t want to give up our belief that our school should be accessible to all students regardless of family income,” Hughes said. “We’re working really hard … to be a private school that’s financially accessible.”

Students at the School for Community Learning take elective classes with children of any age.

Some private schools are able to make themselves accessible to at least some poor families in other ways — usually by providing scholarships on their own, as the elite Park Tudor School in Indianapolis does. Vouchers would alleviate some of the cost, but at an average of $4,258 per student, would leave a lot to be covered at schools that cost close to $20,000 a year — and come with strings that the schools don’t want.

Plus, some schools are reluctant to welcome low-income students who might not be academically prepared, said Mike Petrilli of the Fordham Institute.

“If you’ve got people spending a lot of money to send their kids to this school, and then all of a sudden you open the doors to kids who are paying nothing,” Petrilli said. “That could be challenging, depending on the school community.”

Voucher advocates say it’s not ideal when thriving private schools with strong academic records steer clear of voucher programs. Jay Greene of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas said regulations that discourage the schools from joining in could result in students going to lower-quality schools.

“The more you drive quality private schools out of the program,” he said, “the worse the results are going to be.”

Among the rules that could dissuade schools from participating, according to Greene: testing requirements. Indiana’s voucher program has some of the strictest testing rules in the country, requiring schools to administer the state exam not only to students using vouchers but to all students. Low scores could cost the schools the right to state funds.

At the School for Community Learning, preparing kids for the state test can be a burden, said Wildhack. Teachers have to make sure their curricula follow the order outlined in the state standards, and it makes it harder to find time for projects.

If someone suddenly gave the school a few million dollars, they might choose to leave the voucher program. But for now, vouchers are “totally worth it,” Wildhack said.

President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos participate in a tour of Saint Andrews Catholic in Orlando, Florida.

For some religious schools with a history of serving low and middle-income students, vouchers also help fill crucial budget gaps — and seats — as they face stiff competition from charter, magnet and public schools that don’t cost parents. As in Louisiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin, vouchers in Indiana have helped prop up struggling urban Catholic schools.

One reason vouchers are such a contentious political issue is their entwined relationship with religion. DeVos, a longtime school choice advocate, has called attention to this relationship by visiting several Christian schools that benefit from public money since becoming education secretary.

But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that vouchers don’t violate the constitutional principle of separation of church and state because parents may choose where to use the tuition dollars they receive.

The executive director of Indiana’s private school association said the dearth of secular private schools in the state’s voucher program should not be seen as alarming.

After all, said John Elcesser of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, from neighborhood public schools, to magnet and charter schools, families have lots of secular options.

“You have to kind of look at the big picture when you look at what are the options available to families,” Elcesser said.

The School for Community Learning is in many ways very different from the religious schools that have benefitted most often from vouchers, prioritizing project-based learning rather than prayer. But there are characteristics that make it similar: It was built around shared values, from a commitment to social and environmental justice to dedication to the community.

It’s been sustained because, like a lot of religious schools, parents and staff are willing to make sacrifices to support those values, Hughes said.

“It’s different enough for them that they are willing to make the drive or pay the money or kind of do what it takes to have their child in this safe space of learning.”

‘Religious indoctrination’ bill could restrict teacher autonomy beyond social studies

2016-03-09T01:40:00+00:00

A Tennessee bill aimed at addressing concerns about “religious indoctrination” in seventh-grade social studies classes also could impact the teaching of all core academic subjects in grades 6-12.

The measure, prompted by concerns from activists and parents that students are being “indoctrinated” into Islam while studying world geography and history, would require that any inclusion of religion in textbooks, instructional materials and curriculum “be for educational purposes only and not be used to promote any religion.” In addition, each district must “make publicly available a syllabus” for math, science and English language arts subjects in middle and high school that includes major assignments and field trips.

It’s the second part of the bill, which doesn’t have to do with religion, that concerns teachers who view the legislation as a license to impede their creativity in the classroom.

The bill is scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor on Wednesday after sailing through the House 83-2 last week. Debate thus far has focused on whether the bill would remove mentions of religion. (It would not, according to the sponsor.) However, little has been discussed by lawmakers about how it might limit teachers’ ability to teach.

Currently, all Tennessee public school teachers use the same academic standards, which prescribe what students at each grade level should know. But districts do not create a syllabus for each subject and grade level to dictate to teachers how to teach to those standards — for instance, what to read or assign and which field trips to take.

It’s unclear if, by mandating districts to post “a syllabus” for each core academic course in grades 6-12, every teacher would be able to design their own syllabus, as they do now. Teachers say they value making their own lesson plans and crafting their own assignments.

“I follow the standards to a T, but I can maneuver within them according to what my students need,” said Nashville teacher Nick Rossi, who teaches seventh-grade social studies at Apollo Middle Prep School. “I know my students. I want to make the decisions on what I teach.”

Rossi noted that teachers have an outline of what they’ll teach throughout the year, but it’s not set in stone and allows for flexibility. Assignments can get scrapped, or ideas for new engaging assignments can emerge from conversations with other teachers. “No one knows what March will be like in July,” he said. “You don’t know what the kids are like yet.”

Nationally, teachers’ freedom to be creative in the classroom is closely associated with their job satisfaction, according to a 2015 report from the National Center on Education Statistics.

Others say that a districtwide syllabus could be helpful — if thoughtfully done.

Robert Pondisco, a senior fellow for the Thomas Fordham Institute, points to the Core Knowledge Curriculum, which briefly set the curriculum in Nashville elementary schools in the mid-2000s, as an example of a strong shared curriculum. “It needn’t be an affront to the profession,” he said. “It could be an opportunity to share best pracitices.”

Rep. Matthew Hill of Jonesborough, who is sponsoring the bill in the House, said the measure ultimately is about lessening the influence of religion — any religion — in classrooms. “This is a direct response to concerns across the state about the way religion is taught in Tennessee public schools,” he told colleagues last week.

In part due to concerns about the issue, the State Board of Education launched a review of the state’s social studies standards in January, two years ahead of schedule.

Fast-growing religious alternative schools hit a speed bump with IPS

2015-10-13T19:27:58+00:00

All it took for Donavan Rigdon to find a different kind of school was a simple piece of mail.

When the 18-year-old got a flyer from the Crossing’s new Decatur Township campus, a private alternative school, she figured it was at least worth a shot. She’d already been to school in Beech Grove and Decatur Township, but neither felt like the right fit.

The Crossing is a network of 28 accredited private Christian schools spread throughout Indiana that cater specifically to students who struggled at other schools, were expelled or dropped out. The campus in Decatur Township opened in July in what used to be an appliance store and pool hall.

The Crossing isn’t really like other schools — even other alternative schools.

For one thing, the schools are religious but depend heavily on public funds through partnerships with school districts. Students say they like the mix of online learning, one-on-one teaching, job training and character-building lessons, which come infused with religious teachings.

But the religious connection appears to have cost the Crossing one big potential partner: Indianapolis Public Schools.

This year, Rigdon was looking for something different, and she thought she might be able to find it at the Crossing.

“I’m going to try this,” Rigdon remembers telling herself. “I might as well get myself back into God again, and I just came here, and I love it so far. It’s probably the best school I’ve ever been to.”

The Crossing serves a narrow slice of students who have trouble fitting into traditional or alternative public schools elsewhere but eventually discover they need a high school diploma to open doors to better jobs, said Curt Merlau, a regional director who oversees some of the Crossing’s Indianapolis campuses. This year, the system will serve about 2,500 kids.

In Marion County, Wayne and Decatur townships and Beech Grove schools have contracts to send students to the Crossing. Every campus has licensed teachers, and they use curriculum developed by Seattle-based Apex, a for-profit virtual high school.

Despite the fact that other public schools in the area are comfortable working with the Crossing, IPS board member Kelly Bentley said its strong religious connection helped derail a partnership with the district.

“I’m in no way passing any kind of judgment on the organization or the work they’re trying to do, but it’s clearly a religious organization,” Bentley said. “And I don’t know how you separate that when they’re working in a public school setting.”

Crossing CEO Robert Staley said the organization’s existing track record and success graduating 635 students speaks for itself. In other public school districts, district lawyers were involved in the process and helped craft the agreements, including in IPS. He said they are legal and maintain proper separation of church and state.

“I would love for people to look at the outcome,” Staley said. “They want to grab something and go ‘this isn’t right, that’s not right.’ And I would say look, the reason 60 school corporations … are fully endorsing our model is because of the results that we’re getting in Indiana.”

Kids who need a place to learn

An early version of the Crossing was born out of a meeting tinged with desperation.

Staley, then-principal of Concord High School, brought into his office the parents of a student who was caught several times with marijuana. The boy’s parents were distraught, Staley said.

“(They) came into my office and they were crying and said ‘What are we going to do?’” Staley remembered.

“I’m involved with this little group of people outside of school, and we just talk about life,” Staley told them. “I think your kid is looking for an identity and something to hold on to.”

So, the student accompanied Staley to one of the group’s meetings, and before long he was inviting his friends, too. The kids straightened out, quit doing drugs and asked Staley to visit their friends in jail.

In the meantime, what began as more of a discussion group added a focus on learning. The kids filled a room with six computers so those who were not in school could return to learning. For a while, Staley was doing double-duty — principal during the day, tutor by night.

“I would actually expel kids during the day and call them up at night and invite them to this little school,” Staley said.

The Crossing opened its first official campus in 2003 in a warehouse, an effort built on many conversations with students Staley said had been failed by the traditional school system. They told Staley they needed a place that felt like a family.

That concept resonated with Rigdon, too. The support from her teachers and her classmates helped her feel like she fit in.

“I’m pretty much friends with everybody that’s here,” Rigdon said. “Everybody is helpful and honest, and I’m glad to be here because people don’t judge me for the person that I am or the person that I was before.”

In addition to students’ schoolwork, they are also expected to get job training, whether through an internship or a “micro-business,” a small business idea that students come up with, plan and work to carry out with help from staff members who’ve worked in that field.

Justine Gonzalez, principal at the Decatur campus, said her school is planning to hire someone versed in car detailing so students can create a small business around it. Any profits go toward the staff member’s salary. Other students, Like Rigdon, are placed in internships.

Some day, when she finishes college, she wants to work in a children’s hospital.

“I feel like working with sick children because I had a goddaughter that did have cancer,” Rigdon said. “I feel like children need to know they have a purpose here and make them feel comfortable while they are sick and bond with them and take care of them.”

Religious connection raises doubts for IPS

School districts shell out good money to send kids to campuses of the Crossing.

Under the group’s contracts, the Crossing generally gets 95 percent of the per-student state aid meant to support each student’s education. For Decatur Township, for example, that equates to about $6,300 per student.

The remaining 5 percent of state aid, or about $400 for Decatur, stays with the district in part to support the work it continues to do to monitor student attendance and achievement data. Ultimately, the student graduates from the district school with an Indiana Core 40 diploma, the default diploma the state encourages all college-seeking students to earn.

“That student stays enrolled with the public school, but we serve them day to day,” Merlau said. “We want to be, for the school corporation, the last tool in their toolbox to keep a kid in the corporation, or to even re-enroll students who drop out or who were reassigned as homebound.”

But schools using public dollars that involve religious instruction are bound to draw some scrutiny — and the Crossing is no exception.

For IPS, a partnership might make more sense with programs that already help struggling students in the area, said Bentley, the IPS board member.

Bentley said she prefers to see IPS create such an arrangement, for example, with the Christel House DORS charter school for dropouts or the Excel Center charter schools operated by Goodwill Education Initiatives.

Her question is why even broach the potential messiness that comes from mixing religion and schooling when these schools are an option?

For example, Bentley worried that the Crossing might require employees to follow religious rules and that could be at odds with contracting rules for IPS.

But that’s not a problem the Crossing’s lawyer, Hilary Knipstein, argued in an email.

The Crossing hires “without regard to race, religion, color, gender, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws,” she wrote.

The proposal for IPS to contract with the Crossing was considered by the school board in August by Superintendent Lewis Ferebee. Ferebee said in a statement that IPS now is choosing to go in a different direction.

“IPS is always seeking new ways of reaching students, and the Crossing has a unique model that could be implemented quickly,” Ferebee said. “Instead of pursuing a partnership, we have decided to develop an IPS-specific approach to reaching students who have been disconnected from the district.”

The funding from the public school districts does not pay for the religion classes offered by the Crossing. The classes, which are taught by a community member from a local church, are not for credit and optional for students. The funding for religious instruction comes from the organization’s private fundraising, Staley said.

Parents are notified of the opportunity for the class, as well as other times religion might be referenced, and must sign a form to give their children permission. Kids can excuse themselves if they ever feel uncomfortable. So far, of about the 7,000 kids they’ve served, Merlau said fewer than 10 have done so.

“We’re certainly not going to advocate something we think is illegal,” Staley said. “We have sorted out all of our finances in our accounts so that every public school dollar that come into our organization is used for a secular education program. We’re not doing a Christian school program, we’re doing the same exact model I did for 20 years as a public school principal.”

More growth ahead?

Looking ahead, the Crossing wants to grow, both outside the state and inside Indianapolis. Merlau said he’s building more relationships with township school districts and IPS. In the meantime, he praises his students like Rigdon, who are actively working to educate themselves and turn their lives around.

Gonzalez, Rigdon’s principal at the Crossing, pushes her to keep up her attendance and stay involved, a must if she wants to keep her internship at Salvage Yard Church’s daycare. She helps take care of the kids a few days a week, most of whom are 5-years-old and younger.

“I make sure they’re fed, I make sure I read stories to them, or I teach them letters and numbers,” Rigdon said. “I love to watch them smile, too, around me, and I know that they’re comfortable with me and trust me.”

She’s starting to look at colleges, but she hasn’t made a decision yet. Maybe Arizona, she thinks — that’s where her sister goes to college, and she used to live there when she was younger. Plus, the warm weather is appealing.

But first, she’s got to finish high school. And she’s well on her way.

Just a couple months into the school year, and she’s already completed her year-long senior English class. There’s no question she’s going to college, she said.

“My goal is to finish high school this year by March, and I think I can do it,” Rigdon said. But then, she thinks better of that description. “Not I think. I can do it.”