Kairos Academy will remain closed after administrators abandoned their plans to contest the school’s termination, citing ongoing costs of the appeal.
The Utah Board of Education announced Wednesday that a Sept. 5 hearing for the West Valley City charter school had been cancelled, due to the school withdrawing its appeal of a July closure vote of the State Charter School Board.
“Staff from Kairos Academy, the Utah State Charter School Board, and the Utah State Board of Education are working with nearby school districts and charter schools to find appropriate placement for students who had been attending Kairos,” the Board of Education‘s announcement states.
Last year, roughly 90 students attended Kairos Academy, an all-girl charter school geared toward young mothers and pregnant teens. The school opened in 2014, but remained on probationary status from 2015 until its closure due to concerns related to low enrollment and poor academic performance.
State school board spokeswoman Emilie Wheeler said the board was notified of Kairos Academy’s decision to withdraw on Tuesday. The appeal panel was subsequently disbanded, Wheeler said, effectively ending the possibility that Kairos could continue operating.
”The State Charter School Board’s decision to terminate the Kairos charter will stand,” Wheeler said.
Amy Trombetti, who was named interim director of Kairos shortly before its closure, cited the cost of mounting an appeal as the primary factor behind the school’s decision.
The termination of the Kairos Academy charter severed the school’s access to public funding, prompting administrators to rely on private donations and self-financing for lawyer’s fees.
“It‘s monetary,” Trombetti said. “It‘s just really, really expensive to appeal.”
Kairos Academy was also facing a delayed school year in the event it was allowed to reopen. Trombetti said the lengthy appeals process meant that faculty members were released to pursue other employment opportunities.
“It looked like we weren’t going to even be open until October,” she said. “Definitely the time of year this was happening was not on our side and the cost ended up as something we just could not afford.”
Trombetti said school administrators would work with students to help them enroll at other schools and educational programs. And at least one charter school has expressed initial interest in establishing a program for pregnant and parenting teens, she said.
“We were really hopeful — and could still be hopeful — that we could work with another charter school to offer these girls what they need,” Trombetti said.