Aurora's Kids Deserve High-Quality School Choices

Next week Aurora's school board will hear from several hopeful charter leaders who want to open schools that serve Aurora's kids. At the same meeting, the school board will make a decision on whether or not to convert Fletcher Community School into a charter school--the top contender: Rocky Mountain Prep. These board decisions have the potential to set Aurora Public Schools on a path toward thoughtfully increasing the number of effective schools serving Aurora's kids.

We attended a community meeting hosted by Rocky Mountain Prep where a Fletcher student's sister asked an important question: If Rocky Mountain Prep leads Fletcher where do kids go after? How will we make sure that kids offered an effective elementary school education don't go to a failing middle and high school? This is not an easy question to answer right now and that reveals the deeper needs of the Aurora community. Aurora needs models of success. Charter schools, district-run schools, community school model schools, and innovation schools all need to be part of a broader ecosystem of high-quality options.

We support systems that will ensure that Aurora's kids have high-quality options and sent a letter to the school board that advocates for rigorous processes to determine which schools can provide an excellent education for Aurora's kids.