Wyatt Academy, one of Denver’s oldest charter schools, will likely close at the end of this school year, the latest casualty of declining enrollment and fewer per-pupil dollars. Wyatt for their children, but its board hasn’t yet taken a final vote to close.
The likely closure of Wyatt follows a pattern of single-site charter schools shutting their doors in Denver Public Schools, once one of the most charter-friendly districts in the nation.
But instead of simply going dark, Wyatt leaders say they’ve found a way to continue the 25-year-old elementary school’s . Wyattap board of directors has signed to partner with University Prep, a small homegrown charter network with two elementary schools in the same part of the city.
UPrep will get whatever money is left in Wyattap bank account. It will also get a first shot at hiring Wyattap staff and opportunities to pitch its schools to Wyatt families, who can choose to enroll or not. Wyatt gets a promise that some of its unique community programming, such as its free clothing boutique, food pantry, and laundromat, could continue at UPrep.
“Wyatt is more than just a school,” Amy Younggren, vice chair of the Wyatt board of directors and a former Wyatt teacher, said in an interview. “We have extensive family services available. Part of what was important to us was that those services also stay with and in the community.”
Not everyone is happy with the plan. Tim Lewis is a fifth-grade teacher at Wyatt. He said staff was blindsided last week when they were called into an emergency meeting in a classroom after school and told Wyatt would close in the spring.
The school, he said, is thriving. Its student test scores have earned it the top state rating, signified by the color green. Just last year, DPS renewed Wyattap charter for another five years — the longest time period possible, reserved only for the highest-performing charter schools. Plus, he said, enrollment at Wyatt is slightly up this year.
“Wyatt is a family,” he said. “We’re not just a school. I don’t have any kids of my own. But whenever anybody asks, I say I have 26 kids. Itap the students in my class.”
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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