In a move district officials say will better utilize existing space, Colorado Springs District 11 will welcome one of its charter schools into one of its elementary schools.

Orton Academy will move into Trailblazer Elementary School, where it will operate with its own staff, students and programming in its own classrooms for the 2026-27 school year, Trailblazer Elementary announced Tuesday.

Orton, a K-8 school that opened in 2020, specializes in educating students with dyslexia and has been chartered in D-11 since 2024. It operates out of the former location of Holy Trinity Catholic School, 3115 Larkspur Drive.

The school was previously contracted with the Education ReEnvisioned BOCES based in Monument.

In an email sent to Trailblazer families, Principal Kenneth Pfeil said there will be no changes to the school’s leadership or staff, but that the district’s online school and homeschool programs will move from its building to the Tesla Professional Development building.

“This move allows those programs to better serve their families while opening space within Trailblazer for Orton Academy,” he wrote.

The decision is the latest example of repurposing the district’s existing schools with underutilized space as co-locations for other services in recent years, D-11’s Deputy Superintendent Brandan Comfort said. Other examples include Jack Swigert Aerospace Academy hosting the local nonprofit chapter for Friends of the Children and Galileo Middle School housing a center for at-risk youth run by Joint Initiatives.

He said Trailblazer was built with a capacity for about 600 students and that its enrollment is about 220. The district’s annual capacity report for the 2025-26 school year listed Trailblazer with 337 open seats.

The last time the school’s enrollment surpassed 300 students was during the 2019-2020 school year.

Comfort said recent reports and Orton’s own capacity needs began conversations between the school’s leadership and the district’s facilities and enrollment teams, along with Trailblazer’s area superintendent and school leader.

He added that the school board was informed of the co-location possibility when presented with the latest capacity report and that the district intended to announce the co-location to families at a later date, but admitted that Orton got “a little too excited” and made its own announcement.

Some parents at Trailblazer felt blindsided by the move. On Wednesday, a group of about 30 demonstrators gathered outside their school to voice their frustration, display signs and hand out flyers while D-11 leadership met with staff and faculty. They took issue with the lack of public notice or input leading up to the decision.

Sarah Huber, parent of two first graders and a Trailblazer Parent Teacher Association board member, said she first heard about the possibility over the weekend via an announcement on Orton’s website before receiving the official email this week.

“A little anger,” she said of her initial response to the news. “And then, like, no one really wants change without the ‘Why?’ or the ‘How?’”

Suzanne Miller, a grandmother of a Trailblazer student, expressed concerns about an elementary school also hosting middle school grades and sharing larger areas like the school’s gymnasium.

“And I don’t want my second grader sharing bathrooms and the cafeteria with preteens,” she said. “I just think that it’s an elementary school for a reason and there’s not space to divide everything up. It’s not like you can have the school on one level and the charter school on the other level. It’s not set up for that.”

Both said they weren’t entirely opposed to the idea of the school hosting Orton, but that the timing of the announcement was a negative factor.

“I would be more willing to entertain it,” Huber said, if she had been notified sooner. “If I knew that it was going to support our kids in a certain way, financially, if it wasn’t going to disrupt how we already run the school as a community, that would be different.”

Neither D-11’s board nor Orton Academy’s leadership responded to Gazette requests for comment.

Spark Online Academy will move to the Tesla building’s upper floor, providing greater space for it to grow its student body and programming while freeing up more space to host the two schools “without significant disruption,” Comfort said.

“Even with the two programs, it’s just over 300 kids and it became a valuable opportunity,” he said.

Additionally, rather than eventually close Trailblazer like some have suspected, Comfort said the co-location could act as a greater resource for local dyslexic students and increase enrollment for the district. Orton’s enrollment this school year was reported to be 120.

Similarly, East Hills Academy, a new D-11 charter school opening this fall, will share its facility space with Mann Middle School, which has experienced a declining student population over the past nine years.

Comfort said the incoming charter underwent the same procedure as Orton and that the lack of uproar from this announcement was likely due to clearer and earlier communication.

On Thursday, a Trailblazer school accountability committee meeting will focus on the incoming partnership, where community members are invited to ask questions and share ideas with D-11 representatives.

Trailblazer SAC meeting:

• Thursday 6-7 p.m.
• 2015 Wickes Road
• Virtual Link: https://cssd11.webex.com/cssd11/j.php?MTID=mc151fc18548ea7781360ccc6237af926