{"id":1185,"date":"2026-06-03T19:04:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2026-06-03T19:04:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:04:57","slug":"colorados-first-public-christian-school-closes-permanently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1185","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s \u2018first public Christian school\u2019 closes permanently"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A controversial \u201cpublic Christian school\u201d in southern Colorado has closed permanently after changes in state law cut off funding, its executive director wrote in a legal filing.<\/p>\n

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Backers opened the 30-student Riverstone Academy in Pueblo County nine months ago with hopes of sparking a religious liberty lawsuit that would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Instead, the school faced setbacks \u2014 including safety problems that forced it to move and a $20,000 settlement with the parents of a young student \u2014 and the legal effort fizzled.<\/p>\n

Citing the new provisions in state law, Riverstone Executive Director Quin Friberg wrote in a legal document that the school\u2019s efforts \u201cwill be directed to winding up its operations and shutting down\u201d after the last day of school last week.<\/p>\n

The filing signed by Friberg on Thursday is part of a lawsuit brought by three school board candidates against the Pueblo 70 school board alleging open meetings violations related to Riverstone\u2019s launch.<\/p>\n

Another lawsuit \u2014 the one backers hoped would go to the Supreme Court \u2014 came in February when Riverstone and its authorizer sued the state for religious discrimination, citing the possibility that the state could eventually claw back the school\u2019s public funding.<\/p>\n

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat show the school was created at the behest of a conservative law firm to spark such a lawsuit after the Supreme Court deadlocked on a similar case out of Oklahoma last spring. The firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, asked an education lawyer named Brad Miller if he could \u201cfind a way for a parallel case to be initiated out of Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case was short-lived. The school and its authorizer, a public education co-op based in Monument, dropped the lawsuit in May.<\/p>\n

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The death knell for Riverstone was a pair of amendments lawmakers passed in the last few days of this spring\u2019s legislative session. One bars co-ops like the one that authorized Riverstone from starting schools or programs outside their member school districts. The other bars school districts or co-ops from having brick and mortar schools that are entirely run by contractors.<\/p>\n

The new limits effectively put Riverstone\u2019s authorizer \u2014 Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Educational Services or ERBOCES \u2014 at odds with state law, making Riverstone ineligible for state funding. That\u2019s because Riverstone is located outside of ERBOCES\u2019 two-member school districts and is run by a contractor.<\/p>\n

Riverstone opened quietly last summer in a former office in an industrial area in Pueblo County. It described itself as a public elementary school that offered a Christian foundation, but its religious affiliation wasn\u2019t widely known until October. That\u2019s when Ken Witt, the executive director of ERBOCES, announced at a public meeting that Riverstone was Colorado\u2019s first public Christian school, surprising members of the public and some government officials.<\/p>\n

The fallout included the abrupt resignation in December of Pueblo 70 school board member Anne Ochs after a district parent criticized her for her role in bringing Riverstone into the district and for failing to disclose a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

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Friberg and Witt did not respond to requests for comment about Riverstone\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at\/newsletters.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riverstone Academy, a controversial \u201cpublic Christian school\u201d in southern Colorado, has closed permanently after changes in state law cut off funding, its executive director wrote in a legal filing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nColorado\u2019s \u2018first public Christian school\u2019 closes permanently - Colorado Springs Moverss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=1185\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Colorado\u2019s \u2018first public Christian school\u2019 closes permanently - 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