This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
On October 25 at the St. Vrain Valley School Board Meeting, the school board approved 6-0 to proceed with the negotiation of a facility lease for APEX Homeschooling Enrichment Program.
The approval allows Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Brian Lamar to continue negotiating the possible lease of several Longmont properties. The negotiations include a possible seven year lease contract. The cost of that lease would be $3.5 million with an additional $1.2 million in renovations.
Because of the facility owner’s demand to guarantee the seven-year lease, the board will consider a resolution to encourage current and future education boards to update the contract with the option to decline.
At the Study Session on October 18, at Trail Ridge Middle School, Kim Lancaster, Program Director of APEX, explained the need of the additional facility due to the increasing number of students and unavailability of Lifebridge Church.
The APEX program is sponsored by St. Vrain Valley School District with the purpose of providing opportunities for home-educated children with part-time public school student statuses. St. Vrain Valley School District began sponsoring the APEX program in 2012. Since then it has grown from 250 to over 800 students.
Last year, APEX program taught each weekday in one of three churches including Lifebridge Church and required students to attend one day a week. Lifebridge Church became unavailable to host evacuees from Boulder County fire incident, which made it impossible for the program to keep 18 classrooms and a gym to offer all students in K-12 proper education.
