How Colorado’s largest charter school campus landed in the Adams 12 district

The largest charter school project in the state has officially opened its doors for 1,150 gifted and talented kids around the Adams 12 Five Star School District on a brand new, 43-acre educational campus built in north Thornton.

Stargate School is wrapping an expansion project that grew its former K-8 facility in a residential neighborhood in Thornton into a massive, open-plan campus that includes a high school, effectively doubling its overall student capacity.

“We were K-8 for 20 years, and we started having 50 percent of our 8th graders who were supposed to stay in the Adams 12 School District leaving to go to different place because they couldn’t find the right fit,” said Josh Cochran, executive director of Stargate School. “We worked with our community and our governing board and decided that we wanted to start our own high school.”

Stargate opened off Colorado Boulevard, north of 128th Avenue in 1994. About three years ago, school officials and administrators began discussing the idea of expanding into the high school level.

Read the rest of the story in The Denver Post.