American Preparatory Academy in Jordan School District could be expanding with another campus on Traverse Mountain's rapidly growing development just inside the Alpine School District — if leaders of the charter school think they can pull it off in three months.
The State Charter School Board gave the go-ahead for the academy to establish another K-9 school enrolling 530 students this fall.
But there are still some big hurdles. Ground has yet to be broken on the facility and the State Board of Education must sign off on the project before it can go forward.
The earliest the state board will vote on the school is June 1, leaving only three months to build a facility.
It would also be the first time that a Utah charter school was allowed to establish a second campus.
Howard Headlee, president of APA's governing board, said principals from the Traverse Mountain Development project approached the school in late winter about creating another campus on Traverse Mountain. APA's current campus is in Draper.
The developers would build the school facility and provide desks, chairs and supplies at highly subsidized rates, Headlee said.
"Traverse Mountain has grown much faster than anticipated — they have a number of families and a number of homes under contract and they are going to basically have a population crisis," Headlee said.
"It's a master plan community so they have places for the schools . . . but they are looking to move that part of the plan ahead faster because they need to get a school built quickly."
Ted Heap, a managing principal on the development project, said Traverse Mountain is the 16th fastest-growing master plan community in the country, according to a real estate advisory company study.
"All of the kids on Traverse Mountain are being bused to different locations right now and we want to provide them something better," Heap said. "APA would be an enhancement to the project."
Though charter board leaders widely supported the idea of APA forming partnerships and working with developers, timing was a key concern.
"I think if the state allows an opportunity like this to slip by because of some timing issue that would be very unfortunate," Headlee said. "But timing is critical and it adds an element of risk to the entire project."
But whether state board leaders think it's a risk worth taking is yet to be seen.
Charter board member Brian Allen said with APA's track record they could likely pull it off.
"(APA) is one of the most successful charters in the state — they already have an existing school and they know what they are doing," Allen said. "Is three months a short amount of time? Yeah, but it can be done and we've seen it done."
E-mail: terickson@desnews.com