Crestone Charter School
Crestone Charter School is part of the Colorado Rural Charter Schools Network, which encompasses seven rural charter schools in the state. Crestone is located in Saguache County, Moffat District 2 in the San Luis Valley near the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Crestone utilizes experiential and community-based learning, connecting its students to the surrounding natural environment and Crestone’s unique arts community. With only 60 students, Crestone students learn in multi-aged groups ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Since 1995 Crestone has offered a mentorship program that partners the high school level students according to students’ interests and academic needs with community members in the fields of computer graphics, culinary arts, painting, photography and sculpture. For eight weeks, students spend their afternoons with these community mentors.
During the winter months, Crestone provides its high school students with a mentorship in snowboarding and skiing in an afternoon program that combines fitness with an education in the history and economics of Colorado’s ski and resort industry.
Crestone teachers teach about the ecology of the natural environment, incorporating hiking, camping and field trips into their curriculum. Slated for completion in the next few years is an outdoor education center that would offer students from Crestone and other schools an environmental education program.
Crestone director Reynold Bean says that the mentorship program at Crestone, “takes its leads from the needs of the children and creates a program to meet those needs. The program is used to enhance academics where necessary and to expand kids’ experience.”
Denver Arts and Technology Academy (DATA)
Denver Arts and Technology Academy (DATA) serves 341 students from kindergarten through the eighth grade. DATA combines the academic rigor of a classical education with advanced technology. DATA, founded by a coalition of parents and community leaders and managed by Mosaica Education, Inc., employs the Paragon Humanities curriculum, a program based on the history of ideas in world culture.
DATA boasts one computer per every two students and weaves CD-ROM and Web content into its curriculum. A day at DATA will feature phonics instruction in conjunction with multicultural literature in the morning and an afternoon program emphasizing “great ideas” in world culture, spanning the disciplines of social science, literature, philosophy, drama, music, art, science, history, math and geography.
DATA offers Spanish language instruction to all students beginning in kindergarten, individualized learning plans for each student and weekly progress reports sent home to parents. There is also a parent board of directors that sets school policies.
Bernadette Medina, a parent and the president of the DATA Village, a fellowship of families, teachers and the community, talks about how “different people bring different gifts” to the life of the school, everything from soliciting donations for the library to obtaining a digital camera for the school.
Ridge View Academy
Ridge View Academy is a unique example of a charter school that offers an innovative approach to juvenile corrections. Owned by the state of Colorado and operated by the nonprofit Rite of Passage, Ridge View Academy is a residential charter high school in the town of Watkins in Arapahoe County that serves 400-plus male students who have been committed through the division of youth corrections.
According to Ridge View principal John Fry, “If a child makes a mistake, putting him in jail is not going to fix him, but providing him with an education will.” The school offers six hours of academic instruction and three hours of vocational training per day, including opportunities to learn the construction trades, automotive technology, applied computer technology, barbering school, culinary arts, closed circuit television, welding, HVAC and video production. Ridge View students are also required to complete a minimum of 50 hours of volunteer service in the local communities.
“It has been a wonderful experience for the Village to partner and provide volunteer opportunities for the Rite of Passage," notes Greenwood Village Mayor Karen Blilie about her city’s partnership with Ridge View Academy students. "These students come from all communities within the state of Colorado and by partnering with them, we serve an agency which helps youth in our own Southeast metro area.”
Additional Resources
Check these GreatSchools.net articles for more information about Charter Schools:
Charter Schools Offer an Array of Choices
Online Resources for Charter Schools
Updated October 2004
