D49 staff recommend one-year renewal for Mountain View Academy, board schedules public hearing Feb. 13

District 49 administrators recommended a one-year renewal for Mountain View Academy (MVA) on Jan. 22, asking the Board of Education to impose supports and revisit longer renewal terms after conditions are met.

Dr. Gutierrez, speaking for the ICONNECT zone administration, presented the staff recommendation and described the renewal as the first in-depth review conducted by the zone office. She said the team recommended “one year with some supports. And then once we meet the recommendations in that one year, then we’ll add the additional years.”

Why it matters: Mountain View posted among the district’s top academic scores last year (an 80 with 95% participation cited in the meeting), but staff flagged operational and compliance concerns that could affect continuity of student services. The board set a Feb. 13 public hearing and asked Mountain View leadership to present and respond to the report before a renewal decision is finalized.

What staff found and recommended: ICONNECT zone staff said they expanded the review team for the renewal to include culturally and linguistically diverse education and special education coordinators so observers could visit classrooms and interview staff across grade levels. The administration also worked with Mackenzie Khan of the Colorado Association of Charter School Authorizers (CAXA) in drafting the recommendation.

The report cites strong academic indicators but identifies recurring issues in reporting and data integration that affected state October count filings and other district uploads. Staff said Mountain View was the source of unusually high data error counts during one recent submission cycle and missed deadlines for a December reporting upload after an earlier 90-day corrective-action period. District staff characterized those issues as the primary contract compliance concern.

Operational concerns discussed by board members included higher-than-expected staff turnover, recent departures in building administration, and limited parent interview participation during the team’s site visits. Director Heil said turnover raised questions about whether strong test results would be repeatable if staffing disruptions continued. Other board members urged caution about imposing operational mandates that would intrude into human resources functions run by Mountain View’s education management organization.

Role of National Heritage Academies (NHA): Staff and several board members emphasized that MVA is operated under a contract with National Heritage Academies, which handles human resources and uses proprietary student-information systems. The district’s report noted limited leverage over NHA because D49’s contract is with the school’s governing board rather than with NHA. Several board members and staff said that dynamic complicates access to certain operational data.

NHA and Mountain View responses: Carrie Geithner, identified as Mountain View’s board president, and Matt Carlton of NHA attended the meeting and told the board they felt surprised at some elements of the publicly posted report and said communications had been inconsistent. Carlton said NHA has a team working on the student-information-system (SIS) issues and told the board NHA is committed to resolving them. Geithner said the school had not received copies of some materials before the report appeared online and asked for the opportunity to add context.

Board action and next steps: By consensus (no formal roll-call vote recorded), the board agreed to schedule a public hearing and invited Mountain View Academy leadership — and representatives of NHA — to present at the Feb. 13 meeting. Members also discussed the possibility of extending the statutory decision deadline by mutual agreement to allow additional dialogue. The board directed staff to provide rationale behind the recommendation and to coordinate logistics; the public hearing was noted to be held in the Falcon zone (Bennett Ranch elementary was referenced as the location).

What is unresolved: Staff recommended a one-year renewal with required supports; the board has not yet taken a renewal vote. Several board members signaled they would prefer additional information on the school’s staffing turnover data, details of the corrective-action timeline, and confirmation of Mountain View’s integration with the district’s required reporting processes before deciding on a longer term. NHA and Mountain View requested earlier access to draft materials and site-visit notes so they can respond in full at the Feb. 13 hearing.

Ending note: The board asked staff to continue calibrating the authorizing process and to ensure Mountain View and NHA have an opportunity to respond publicly before a final renewal decision is made.