Many residents agree that the town of Alpine could use a school. But not all can get behind a charter school application that is on the fast track for an anticipated fall 2025 start date.
With a growing population, the town of 1,300 is one of the few its size in Wyoming that lacks its own school.
This isn’t a big issue for younger students who can attend elementary schools in nearby Etna and Thayne.
When students reach middle school and high school, however, they face a 90-minute round-trip bus commute to Afton.
With a population of about 1,300, Alpine is one of the only towns its size in Wyoming without a school. (Credit: Teton Board of Realtors)
It can be stressful for some parents to be so far from their kids.
Heather Goodrich is one of the few Alpine parents who gets to work in the vicinity of her kids’ school. As a teacher at Jackson Hole Middle School, her kids could bypass Teton County’s district boundary and attend school in Jackson.
“The thought of working in Jackson and sending your kid far away from you, or your kid sitting on the bus for hours a day, is really difficult and very emotional,” Goodrich said.
Still, the top contender for a new charter school in Alpine doesn’t sit well with Goodrich.
When the town formed the Alpine Public Education Committee in 2023 and asked her to join, she had high hopes. And a potential charter school was floated as the quickest option. A traditional new public school would be at least five years out.
She started looking into the charter school company selected by Alpine real estate developers and investors. That’s when Goodrich became concerned.
American Preparatory Schools, a for-profit Utah company, describes itself as an “award-winning public charter school,” serving over 5,000 students at six campuses in Utah.
It has also been the subject of recent controversies in Utah and Nevada, several of which boil down to allegations of mishandled finances and racism in school policies and leadership.
In Utah the state ordered American Preparatory Schools to pay back $2.8 million of “misdirected funds” which were meant for special education programs.
American Prep has responded to much of the negative news coverage in an eight-page press release, with responses to controversies dating from 2018 to 2023.
Jeff Daugherty is a consultant for the charter school applications. Asked about concerns regarding the organization’s track record of financial mismanagement, he answered a different question.
“[American Prep] makes it very easy for schools to change providers if that’s what they want to do,” he said.
If residents grew unhappy with American Prep, they could rally to change the charter, as did one school in Nevada.
Daugherty touted this as a feature of the charter model.
Concerns about financial feasibility prompted many residents to speak out against the school during public comment in public meetings.
In October, residents launched a petition titled “Halt the Rushed Alpine WY American Preparatory Charter School Application Process.” Since then, more than 268 people have signed and some left comments in opposition.
In a video comment on the petition, educator Goodrich described the school as a bad onion, saying, “the more I peel back the layers, the stinkier it gets.”
She told KHOL she’s worried American Prep’s finances won’t pencil. She’s also unsure if the school can provide a curriculum that’s not steeped in political views, something she said is not allowed at her public school.
“This school is a right-leaning, conservative-leaning school and they’re proud of that fact,” she said. “For a school that isn’t going to majority serve Alpine kids, it’s not going to be staffed by teachers who live in Alpine, whose school is this? Who’s this for?”
In fliers distributed around Alpine earlier this year, American Prep advertised itself as a school system that teaches “critical thinking” and bans cellphones. It also promises to exclude “diversity, equity and inclusion” and “critical race theory” from its curriculum, opting for what it calls a “patriotic education.”
The charter school company has a history of figuring out essential infrastructure details as they go.
After failing to construct a fire route, for instance, the city of Draper was poised to crack down on an American Prep school in 2018. The charter school ultimately bought a nearby house to demolish it for the fire route, in the meantime costing taxpayers half a million dollars in legal fees.
Many Alpine residents are already worried existing infrastructure isn’t keeping up with growth.
The town regularly hits its water capacity each summer, according to Alpine Mayor Eric Greene.
With this in mind, Alpine has looked to update its master plan in 2025 though the latest reports on traffic, engineering, sewage and water systems would not be ready as early as the next school year. That’s when the charter school aims to be up and running.
Despite this, the charter school applicants, who are fine-tuning their contract with the state authorizing board, are already under contract for land that would house the school.
According to Daugherty, a former assistant Teton County superintendent who now lives in Cheyenne, the American Prep application board for Alpine recently selected land “proximate to the town of Alpine,” or just outside incorporated town boundaries.
The land is outside town boundaries, so water and sewage lines don’t yet exist, Daugherty said. The applicants have less than 60 days to find a solution.
Daugherty added that the charter school doesn’t currently have the funds to provide transportation. Buses and drivers are on its list of things to do. The same goes for providing lunch at the school.
Within the district, American Prep or any other school in its place still may have to fight for students.
If the new school, which would offer K-8 education, drew too many students from the existing K-6 offerings in Etna and Thayne, Lincoln County School District would have to consider cutting staff.
But Superintendent Matt Erickson said he welcomes more education options but said a fall start date might be a tad ambitious.
“It would be an extremely heavy lift,” Erickson said. “But, if anybody can pull it off, it would be them because they’re a very organized and great group of people.”
Erickson also said the state determines when his district is ready for another school through traditional public school pathways.
In the latest “Most Cost Effective Remedy” report, Alpine wasn’t deemed ready for a school since those in Afton haven’t drawn concerns for “conditions” or “capacity.”
Until these concerns come up, if ever, the charter school option is the fastest way to bring in a new school.
And despite the red flags and details still being worked out, American Prep is relatively on-track.
Daugherty says they’re aiming to open as soon as next year, when, come fall, he hopes 150 students will walk through the doors for the first day of school, and possibly twice as many the next year.
