{"id":39953,"date":"2022-06-17T02:24:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T08:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ascent-classical-academy-responds-to-denial-of-charter-school-application\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:52:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:52:38","slug":"ascent-classical-academy-responds-to-denial-of-charter-school-application","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/ascent-classical-academy-responds-to-denial-of-charter-school-application\/","title":{"rendered":"Ascent Classical Academy responds to denial of charter school application"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Derec
Derec Shuler, CEO of Ascent Classical Academies, speaks during the Durango School District 9-R public forum on Tuesday. He defended statute and rules waiver requests and called concerns about Ascent\u2019s connection to the private Christian school Hillsdale College distractions. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Ascent Classical Academy declined to say whether it plans to appeal Durango School District 9-R\u2019s denial of its charter school application.<\/p>\n

In an email, Ascent Chief Executive Officer Derec Shuler said the school is reviewing its options to find the best chance of being approved for a Durango location.<\/p>\n

Shuler kept pressing his case for a charter school in Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not hear anyone from 9-R mention we lack support,\u201d he wrote in an email to The Durango<\/em> Herald<\/em>. \u201cA best practice in Colorado for submitting a charter application is to have 25% of your opening enrollment having completed an expression of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shuler said the school had over 150% of open enrollment expressing interest, surpassing the best practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know from experience all those children will not show up or actually attend our school, but we will gain much more support when a contract is approved, a location is announced and when we announce a school leader,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shuler cites 9-R\u2019s loss of rural funding as a major reason why the board denied the application. He said the school district did not want to increase enrollment for fear of losing its rural status.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of experience doing this work, and we do not have a doubt this was a strong proposal that would lead to the only K-12, classical, Core Knowledge program in the community and southwest Colorado, and be an asset in Durango,\u201d Shuler wrote in his email.<\/p>\n

Shuler questioned the fairness of 9-R\u2019s review. He based this on the low review score given to Ascent for a school operating in other locations and the nine-page denial resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have concerns about the fairness of the process and the decision not being in the best interest of the community evidenced by the overwhelming demand from parents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Shuler said Ascent has reached out to the school district to have a conversation about a cooperative path moving forward.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

believes Durango School District 9-R didn\u2019t give a fair review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1086,155,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-education","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84498,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39953\/revisions\/84498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39953"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}