ALPINE—Nothing stirred on this residential corner of spread-out homes, though the school bus was due in just 10 minutes. The sun had yet to peak over the hulking mountains east of town, and a lone robin chirruped across the cold blueish pre-dawn light.

Six minutes later, at 6:51 a.m., a group of children marched into view and toward the bus stop.

A minivan soon pulled up and idled. Behind the wheel was a woman named Irena, who was dropping off her first-grade daughter and didn’t give her last name in the morning rush. Irena, like many residents of this small bedroom community, commutes to work in Jackson, she said. Most Alpine school kids like her daughter, meanwhile, attend Lincoln County schools, which means they ride buses taking them in the opposite direction.

The disconnect has long been a source of frustration for families in this community, where many parents spend their days working in a town one to two hours’ drive away from where their children are educated.

Then relief appeared on the horizon when longstanding efforts to raise up a school in Alpine finally got traction last fall. Wyoming’s new state authorizing board approved a charter application for a town residents agree is in “desperate” need of its own education facility. The early process was defined by overwhelming support for a school, and a charter group chose American Preparatory Academy out of Utah to operate it.

But fast-forward several months, and the charter school proposal has deeply divided the community. Outcry over APA’s conservative values and history of lawsuits fueled months of debate before the Alpine Town Council stipulated the charter board select a new provider. Adding to the tension, landowners of a nearby airpark are leery about a school location that might sit in their flight path. Questions about precise school enrollment estimates, employment structure and the makeup of the school’s governing board remain unanswered as the town considers leasing its land to the school.

School proponents, meanwhile, say they need the town’s stamp of approval before they can nail down details — underscoring a chicken-and-egg conundrum that has swirled around the charter school proposal since its inception. 

It’s a story shaped by factors that include rural challenges and the high cost of living in resort towns. It’s also one that could offer a cautionary tale of the stumbling blocks and lengthy process proponents might face as they work to open more charter schools in a state that is becoming friendlier to school choice.  

In Alpine, the charter school proposal also has become a painful reminder of deep disagreements over how the town can best shape its future. 

“It’s gutted us,” said Shay Scaffide, a real estate agent and mother who was motivated to run for town council by her interest in the school. She was elected in November. 

Back at the bus stop, Irena, who has two younger children not yet in school, said she and her husband sincerely hope they can enroll their kids in an Alpine school someday soon. They don’t want to spend their daily lives in such a scattered arrangement, she said. They support the charter school. 

Moments later, a Lincoln County School District 2 bus pulled up, the doors opening with a hiss. Irena’s daughter exited the family van and queued up behind the other children. With the riders aboard, the bus driver closed the doors and pulled away from the corner, heading south to Etna, where the girl would transfer to another bus that would ultimately take her to Thayne Elementary School. 

By the map, she’d be 54 miles away from her mother’s work. But to her mom and many others in Alpine, the gulf feels much larger.

A complication of geography 

Alpine butts up against the Idaho border where the Snake River flows into the southern foot of Palisades Reservoir. Along with bordering two bodies of water, the town of 1,220 people is surrounded by mountainous national forest. 

It’s relatively young among Wyoming towns; it wasn’t incorporated until 1988. But it’s grown substantially and has been one of the state’s fastest-growing communities in recent years. 

Lifelong Alpine resident Dave Jenkins was born before it was incorporated. His father started a hardware business in Alpine and was instrumental in forming the fire department, EMS and a local church. The younger Jenkins has watched the community evolve drastically. 

It’s always been a bedroom community for people who work in Jackson, Jenkins said, but he remembers when it was little more than a handful of homes, plus a gas station and bar. Today, the town boasts a grocery store, three banks, a brewery and a medical center. Neighborhoods near the reservoir house families, and residents and visitors can land and stow their aircraft in the Alpine Airpark. It’s plain to Jenkins why more people are moving here. 

“We have three rivers, a beautiful lake, the mountains,” he said. “It’s just an awesome place to live if you like the outdoors.”

Alpine also technically sits at the northern tip of Star Valley — a scenic and sparsely populated landscape settled by Mormons in the late 1870s. 

That puts Alpine inside the boundaries of Lincoln County School District 2, which operates schools in Etna, Osmond, Thayne, Afton and farther south in Cokeville. 

As a kid and then a parent in Alpine, Jenkins experienced firsthand the hardships involved with having a school so far from home. Kids leave the house before 7 a.m. and, depending on after-school activities, often don’t return until after dinnertime.

“It’s a long day,” he said. “It’s an hour there, an hour back. Sometimes you get home, and then have to go back again for something else.”

The grueling schedule puts Alpine kids at a disadvantage, he said, especially the youngest students. “Your 5-year-old is changing buses in the middle of the winter, in the dark, in Etna, and then getting on another bus to go on to Thayne.”

He also thinks a school is crucial for Alpine to be a sustainable and well-rounded community. 

“You hear multiple times where people move here, they get kids, the kids get of age and either they move to Afton or Victor/Driggs or somewhere else” that has a school, he said. A school would root people into Alpine, he said.

When Kelly Shackelford moved her family to Alpine to be close to her parents in 2017, the school transition for her children came as a shock. They had previously lived in Cheyenne, where schools were blocks away, she said. 

“I was like, ‘Oh my God, what have I done to my children?’” she remembers. 

As a single mother working in Jackson, the juggling act has been difficult, she said. She remembers the day she got a phone call at work that her daughter was injured playing soccer in Afton. “It took me two and a half hours to get to her … And that’s just not fun for any parent.”

Shackelford and Jenkins were among a group of citizens who joined forces with a common goal for a school. Investor and developer Steven Funk was also heavily involved early in the process. 

Jenkins was so motivated that he ran for the LCSD2 school board. He was elected in 2022 with the express goal of bringing a school to Alpine. But he soon discovered that going through traditional public school channels would take many years. 

LCSD2 Superintendent Matt Erickson confirmed that. In Wyoming, schools are built according to a formula of need based on capacity or building condition. Alpine simply doesn’t have the student population to trigger a new building, given that Etna and Thayne elementary schools have sufficient capacity, he said. 

“It’s all about numbers, and we average about 15 students per grade level in the Alpine area,” Erickson said. The population likely will grow to substantiate the creation of a school in the future, but so far, he said, “the numbers just haven’t borne out that they would qualify for a school,” based on the state’s formulas.

Jenkins and others didn’t want to wait years. They began exploring other options. 

School dreams

Alpine resident Eric Green commuted to Jackson five days a week when his children were in LCSD2 schools, and he knows firsthand what a headache it can be. When he was elected Alpine mayor in 2022, one of the first things he did was initiate a conversation with district officials about a school in Alpine. Officials were clear that it would be years before a public school was feasible.

Green also initiated the Alpine Public Education Committee. 

“Since Alpine didn’t have a school, and I think everyone is in agreement that Alpine deserves a school, I thought it was a proper time to put together a group of people to do some research and give us their recommendation on, should we focus on a Lincoln County School District school in Alpine or should we go the charter school route?” Green said. 

The committee looked into the possibility of LCSD2 reconfiguring grades in buildings so that young Alpine students could have a shorter bus ride to Etna for K-6 grades. The district, which had moved to the pod structure of schools — which concentrates kids of the same class together in configurations such as K-3 and 4-6 schools in lieu of K-6 — was reluctant to change back. The committee ultimately decided that the charter option was its best bet for success. Jenkins also came to that conclusion, and a charter school board coalesced. 

A charter school is a tuition-free public school that is run independently. In Wyoming, these were traditionally approved through school districts, like Arapahoe Charter High School on the Wind River Reservation. In 2023, however, the Wyoming Legislature created a state charter authorizing board as another avenue for charters to emerge. That board was empowered to approve three charters, which it did for schools in Cheyenne, Chugwater and Casper. 

By the time school advocates decided to pursue a charter for Alpine, the state board did not have the authority to approve another charter until 2026. The Alpine group hired education consultant Jeff Daugherty to work with lawmakers, and they helped pass legislation that enabled one Western Wyoming charter school to be authorized in 2024, which meant a spot was open for Alpine. 

The Alpine group set out to select a school provider. Wyoming doesn’t have any charter providers, so they looked out of state and — with the recommendation of Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, and support of Sen. Dan Dockstader, R-Afton — settled on American Preparatory Academy out of Utah to move forward with the application. 

APA, which operates nine charter schools in Utah, touts its program as a “classical education charter school focusing on academic rigour and character development.” Its students wear uniforms, learn cursive from a young age and study Latin. It boasts a structured and patriotic environment that pushes kids to want to excel on their own.

The Alpine charter board, joined by APA’s founder, Carolyn Sharette, held public information sessions last summer before undergoing the application process with the state. 

In the end, Alpine won out over another application from Cody.

The authorizing board approved the K-8 school charter in October with several conditions. They included stipulations that the charter board add member who is a K-12 expert; that the head of school report to the school board rather than the APA; and that the local board be the financial decision-maker.

“So we got the charter,” Jenkins said. “We thought that would be the hard part.”

Sentiment splits

Support dominated the tenor of early town meetings on the possibility of a charter school.

Jennifer Wilhite stood at the lectern during a September meeting to explain how, after 27 years, she had sold her home in Jackson and moved her family to Alpine. But getting her kids to the bus at 6:50 a.m. every day “was challenging, to say the least.” So challenging that she went to the trouble to build a house in Etna and move her family again to be close to that school. She still dreams of settling in Alpine. “I am 100% for this charter school,” she said. 

At that same meeting, Alpine resident, parent and elementary school teacher Jennifer Baki said she sees how the grueling schedule impacts students’ ability to learn, especially the youngest ones. “They come to school so exhausted,” she said.

There were voices of concern about Alpine Preparatory Academy, however, including from members of the mayor’s education committee. Jordan Kurt Mason, a Jackson teacher, warned about “dog whistles to a far-right political stance,” such as an American Preparatory Academy blog post specifying that teaching Critical Race Theory at a K-12 level is indoctrinational. 

Heather Goodrich was another member of the committee. Because she is a teacher in Jackson, Goodrich has been able to enroll and take her children to school in Teton County School District 1. But she wanted Alpine to have a school of its own. She even dreamed of working for it, she said. 

However, she was troubled by the APA’s rhetoric and what she sees as language coded toward far-right and white nationalist views. Soon after the committee began to explore the charter school option, Goodrich said she started feeling like the plan was predetermined, which she didn’t like. 

When she and others tried to explore other charter providers, she said, they were shot down and “gaslit” with the message that APA was the only option. But the more she learned about APA, the more opposed she became. She discovered a host of concerns regarding lawsuits, pedagogy, alleged racism and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment, she said. 

“It’s very clear that this is a very right-leaning school,” Goodrich said. 

In Alpine, criticism began to grow louder. Meetings grew more contentious, with accusations flying about conflicts of interest and complaints that the state’s and town’s school conditions weren’t being met. Both sides felt attacked.

“It just feels like this snowball,” said council member Scaffide, who was among critics. “Every time we have actual facts to say, ‘this isn’t a good idea,’ we are made to look like we’re anti-school.” There were also too many outstanding questions around how the school would be funded and how students would be served, she said. 

In a written response signed by the Alpine Charter Board, the group aimed to dispel many of the criticisms about APA. 

“There have been significant rumors, inaccurate statements, and baseless lies being spread around our community about the Alpine Charter School project, and the proposed Education Service Provider, American Preparatory Academy,” the group wrote, adding that a group of community individuals “are actively engaged in an attempt to discredit this school and kill the opportunity for Alpine to finally obtain a public, community school.”

That didn’t mollify those concerned that APA was a bad fit for Alpine. 

A town divided 

Those concerns spilled into town council meetings over the winter and spring when the charter board asked to lease town land for the school. The land in question sits near the south end of the reservoir, and town council members expressed caution of promising away too much without certain guarantees. 

Mayor Green noted during a meeting that despite the need that everyone agrees is there, something this monumental cannot be rushed. 

“This is probably the biggest decision that’s happened [in Alpine] in the last 30 years,” he said. “And I don’t take that lightly.”

In December, the council presented the charter board with a list of demands: a roster of the fundraising foundation’s board and any contracts with APA, projected enrollment, financial documentation, building budgets, etc. Following that meeting, the apparently discouraged charter board pursued purchasing a private parcel for the school. Funk told a local radio program that “lawsuit threats, coercion, lies” had seeped into the process and he feared they would “lose this at the town level” due to the obstacles being put in the way.

Then, in March, a hasty town council meeting was convened. The charter board had an unexpected opportunity to purchase modular buildings for the school, but faced a tight purchase deadline. The board wanted to know if the town would lease it the property.

The opportunity was too good to pass up, Jenkins told the room. He repeatedly urged the council’s support .

“If we lose these modulars, I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” he said. “Are you with us or not? That’s kind of what we’re saying to the town council tonight.” 

Frustrations boiled over, and decorum eroded as people shouted over one another and demanded to make public comment. The town attorney brought up a new letter from the airpark giving notice that the proposed location is in its unpublished flight path — basically the ground zone of aircraft trajectories. He called it a litigation threat. Tensions were thick.

Councilwoman Emily Castillo, who also served on the Alpine Education Committee, noted that as the mother of a toddler, she’s the only member of the council who stands to personally benefit from a charter school.

“But I have to look at all the factors,” she said, and she still had concerns. “This is town-owned land, which means that everybody owns it and everybody has a seat at the table.” 

In the end, the council passed a measure directing Mayor Green to work with the charter group and the airpark to find a property that works for all parties. Castillo and Scaffide voted against it. 

Around this time, a 2024 court judgement surfaced from a Utah civil lawsuit, with the judge finding that APA founder Sharette had defrauded her sister when the latter was cognitively impaired from a health condition. The sister, Laura Campbell, co-founded APA with Sharette. 

Then, just last week, the town issued a new lease stipulation for the charter board: select a different provider. 

Days later, the charter board began talks with Academica, a service provider to the Wyoming Classical Academy in Casper and Cheyenne Classical Academy. The Alpine charter group plans to amend its charter application to reflect a new provider and present it to the state board by June 5. Academica can still offer the classical style of education, Jenkins said. 

Jenkins told the state charter board Wednesday the parties are closing in on a lease for town land. “We are hopefully within a week or two of having that back from the mayor,” he said during an update. 

A town ‘fractured’

What began as a lofty goal for the kids of Alpine has put the community’s adults through a stressful and acrimonious process. It’s not over yet, but those involved hope the provider change will smooth some of the edges. 

“I’m really relieved they’re moving away from APA,” Goodrich said. She hasn’t had a chance to look into Academica carefully, but said she has general concerns “about the charter school movement and diverting public funds away from public schools to private entities.”

Still, she is hopeful the latest development leads to more open conversations, she said. 

The charter board fought for APA for a long time, Jenkins said, so pivoting wasn’t easy. But the piece of town land is critical for a school, and the charter board is willing to make this concession if it means a school is possible, he said. 

“It’s tough, but what do you do?” he said when reached last week.

Councilwoman Scaffide also hopes this is a turning point toward a better process. “What’s so hard at the end of the day is it’s so divided,” she said.  

When Scaffide thinks about all the factors straining the issue, she comes back to this feeling that the town has been kind of pushed aside by the school district and other entities and left to fend for itself. 

“So it’s like, Lincoln County School District 2 doesn’t want us, Teton County [School District] can’t take us with their moratorium from over-crowding,” she said. “So we’re just this little island.”

Lawmakers pushed this charter and celebrated when the board authorized it, but, Scaffide asked, to what end? The charter board needs to approve charters that already have a building in place, she said. Instead of gifting something to Alpine, she said, the lawmakers “have just fractured our town.” 

The school district considers Alpine just as seriously as it does all the district communities, LCSD2 Superintendent Erickson contends. Right now, however, options that have been floated — like reconfiguring Etna to a K-6 school — don’t pencil out.

“We want to support as much as we can,” Erickson said of the town’s charter effort. “We totally understand the motivation behind it, and wish them nothing but the very, very best.”

Listening to the community   

The Alpine charter board originally envisioned opening the school to students this fall. That was revised to fall of 2026, and the group is still aiming at that ambitious goal, Jenkins said. 

“We’re very hopeful,” he added. “Alpine needs relief.”

During a virtual status update Wednesday afternoon, Jenkins told the Wyoming Charter School Authorizing Board the project is advancing, despite the many backslides. 

“We’re just going to keep moving forward until we can’t,” he said. “But so far, we just keep getting a little pathway forward.”

The new twist with the school provider was apparently serious enough to warrant a visit to Alpine from two Wyoming Charter School Authorizing Board representatives last week. 

One of those representatives, Chair Janine Bay Teske, summed up the situation during Wednesday’s meeting like this: “You guys listened to your community, your community told you that APA wasn’t something that they really favored, and so you’re fixing that.” 

Meanwhile, Alpine kids have a few more weeks left of the school year. They will rise early, with many arriving at the bus stop before the rest of the town stirs.