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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.
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.
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.
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.
