At its Feb. 18 meeting, the Jefferson High School board voted to dissolve the Jefferson Academy Charter School, created a year ago to serve an anticipated 60 to 100 at-risk students from grades 5 to 12 in partnership with the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch (YBGR).
The academy, which would have been located on the YBGR residential campus in Boulder, is being dissolved due to low enrollment. “We only have between 8 to 10 students at YGBR, and we need at least 20,” said JHS superintendent Erik Wilkerson. JHS had hoped that at least 25 students on its campus would qualify for the charter, and eventually up to 40 students from YBGR.
Jefferson’s plan for a charter school was approved by the state Board of Education in January, 2024 — one of 19 launched statewide — following the passage of a bill in the 2023 State Legislature that permitted public charter schools within the jurisdiction of existing school boards.
While the Jefferson Academy Charter School was not planned or conceived with any particular grant funding in mind, JHS and YBGR officials had hoped to enroll a sufficient number of students to allow the program to collect entitlement funding, which would have amounted to more than $300,000.
“Since we hoped to operate the charter with students from grades 5 to 12, we needed to fulfill minimum enrollment requirements for both a middle school and a high school,” said JHS Principal Mike Moodry. “That means 41 high schoolers, and 20 middle schoolers. Based on previous numbers from YBGR, and their recent building expansion, we expected to hit the enrollment we needed, no problem. But it didn’t work out that way.”
While the YBGR campus usually serves more than 20 children at a time, enrollment has dropped by more than 50 percent this year, likely due to difficulties accessing behavioral health professionals in Boulder, according to sources at JHS.
Wilkerson will formally inform the State Board of Education of the decision to dissolve the Jefferson Academy Charter School at its next monthly meeting, in March.
