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A Pueblo County school billed as Colorado’s “first public Christian school” has racked up more than a dozen zoning, building, and health code violations since opening this school year, according to documents obtained through a public records request.
And a local fire official said concerns about Riverstone Academy’s fire detection system prompted him to require patrols around the school every half hour.
The school employee tasked with that is “basically the fire alarm system,” said Rodney DeSiata, fire marshal and assistant fire chief at the Pueblo Rural Fire Protection District.
Riverstone, a K-5 school that describes itself as offering “a Christian foundation” and Christian curriculum, opened in August with about 30 elementary students, according to the school’s executive director.
Since then, four local departments have identified problems related to health, safety, and other rules and ordered school officials to make fixes, records show. The school is located in a former office in a light industrial zone near concrete, landscaping, and marijuana businesses.
Local officials said Riverstone skipped routine steps that should be followed when opening a school. While most public schools take more than a year to plan and launch, Riverstone opened in about three months.
In a statement emailed Tuesday, Riverstone Executive Director Quin Friberg said school officials have met with relevant county departments and are implementing their recommendations. Most updates, such as those from the health department, were completed weeks ago, he wrote.
“All departments confirmed that there are no health or safety concerns requiring closure, which is why we have been allowed to continue operating throughout this process,” he wrote. “ … We remain focused on serving our students and families with excellence and look forward to continuing to provide a safe, high-quality educational environment.”
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. The Colorado lawyer who authored the email said he’d been approached by a Christian law firm about starting a new test case.
State officials warned Riverstone’s authorizer in October that they could withhold funding from the school because of its religious character, a step the authorizer described as unconstitutional. If the state follows through and withholds funding, that could trigger a lawsuit and a test case.
Kevin Welner, director of the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, suggested that the school’s various code violations indicate its founders may have launched the school quickly to take advantage of the legal moment or because of a “move fast and break things” approach.
“I don’t know why they wouldn’t wait another year, create a more viable school and a stronger test case,” he said.
Riverstone faces 13 violations
Riverstone generated headlines and caught the attention of some public officials in mid-October when its authorizer’s leader publicly declared it Colorado’s “first public Christian school.”
Riverstone’s authorizer is Education reEnvisioned BOCES, or Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Colorado has 21 BOCES, which are public entities that typically provide special education services, teacher training, or other programming to member school districts.
Ken Witt, executive director of Education reEnvisioned BOCES, did not respond to Chalkbeat’s requests for comment for this story.
By late October, local officials in Pueblo County had found at least 13 violations related to the school, according to documents obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request. One, issued to the property owner, Jenna Wolfe LLC, was for locating a school in a zoning district where schools are not allowed. Wolfe declined to comment for this story.
County officials also found the building’s occupancy type was not changed from a business use to an educational use as it should have been, records show.
Another 11 violations were cited by the Pueblo County Department of Public Health and Environment during an Oct. 29 inspection. They included a lack of drinking fountains, lack of a bathroom near the health room, missing radon testing and asbestos management records, improperly stored chemicals, and a finding that “the school campus is not maintained to prevent fire hazards.”
In mid-November, Sheryl Gifford, a Riverstone official, told a Pueblo County health inspector by email that she was in the process of getting radon testing done and that an architect was working on site plans, records show.
She also noted that Riverstone students had access to bottled water and water from a dispenser, according to documents obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request.
It’s not clear if parents of Riverstone students have been notified about the violations. Chalkbeat asked Riverstone for any emails or letters sent to parents about the violations or compliance issues, and school officials said no such records existed.
Authorities worry about lacking safety features
Multiple local officials told Chalkbeat they were moved to issue violations or demand extra precautions because of safety concerns.
DeSiata, the fire marshal, said when he learned from a news report this fall that Riverstone was up and running with students in the building, it was “an ‘oh no’ type of situation.”
“It was kind of like, ‘Wait a minute. This can’t be happening,’” he said. “Parents are trusting you with their kids. We have to make sure the safety features that are required for this are in place.”
DeSiata said he put Riverstone on fire watch, which requires someone with the ability to call 911 and evacuate students and staff to check every part of the building where a fire could occur every 30 minutes.
He said he’s placed other schools on fire watch from time to time, for example if their fire alarm systems weren’t functioning properly.
Mark Guerrero, a building official with the Pueblo Regional Building Department, said Riverstone moved into space designed for an office and used it for a school.
“They’re not allowed to do that,” he said. “We had enough concern to put these folks under violation, because if we had done nothing and something would have happened, we would have been blamed.”
Guerrero said school officials should have gotten a commercial permit and submitted plans to the county showing how they’d comply with building code rules for schools such as the number of exits needed for the number and ages of children on the premises. He said his department will require Riverstone to hire a design professional to do a code study to see if the building can be safely used as a school.
But first, he said, Riverstone is working with the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department to see if it will be allowed in the light industrial zone where it’s now located. County officials recently changed zoning rules to allow private schools in such zones under certain conditions.
To meet those conditions, county officials said, Riverstone will have to go through the county’s site development plan process and obtain a special use permit. Friberg said in his emailed statement that Riverstone is finalizing the remaining administrative steps to do so.
While Riverstone advertises itself as a public school and is seeking state funding, school officials have simultaneously described it as a private school on certain paperwork and to certain officials. Carmen Howard, director of the Pueblo County Planning and Development Department, told Chalkbeat the department considers the school private based on information “from Riverstone.”
The school’s commercial insurance policy lists Riverstone as a private school. The policy, obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request, is through Mutual Brotherhood, an Indiana company that insures Christian ministries, including churches and schools.
Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.
