Alpine mulls lease with charter school despite legal threat from private aviation community

ALPINE – Despite a looming legal threat from a key neighbor, the Alpine Airpark, the Town of Alpine will begin negotiating a lease of town land to a new charter school in the small, western Wyoming town.

On March 18, the Town of Alpine voted 3-2 in favor of Mayor Eric Green starting conversations with the Alpine Charter Board, which would contract with American Preparatory Academy to operate the new school.

There is currently no school in Alpine, which residents have long wanted to change. The American Preparatory Academy’s right-leaning curriculum has, however, given some parents pause. The school also still needs a place to operate. It’s asking Alpine to lease land for a modular campus, similar to the facility the Jackson Hole Classical Academy built in Teton County while it was completing its permanent school.

Before Alpine’s town councilors voted last Tuesday to begin negotiating with the Alpine Charter Board, Town Attorney James Sanderson cautioned against doing so. The town had received a letter from the airpark’s lawyers saying the airpark was poised to sue to protect Federal Aviation Administration flight paths that they said exist over the same town land the charter board wants to use for its new, independent school.

Alpine officials reached by the Jackson Hole Daily declined to provide the letter, citing pending legal action.

While Sanderson said last Tuesday that he had limited knowledge of the merit of the Airpark’s legal threat, he said Alpine does not have the money to fight a potential lawsuit involving the Airpark and charter board.

Despite the threat, Dave Jenkins, a charter board member, continued to rally the crowd at the meeting, saying it was now or never for the town to show its support for the independent charter school.

Jenkins said he and the charter board wanted to purchase $1 million worth of educational modules from the Jackson Hole Classical Academy and place those modulars on the town’s property.

“This is yours to lose,” Jenkins told the Alpine Town Council.

With no money to construct the school, the charter board is looking to purchase the modulars with a loan. But that purchase has to happen before June due to the Classical Academy’s timeline, Jenkins said.

Council members asked for financial assurances that the charter could pay back the loan for the modulars. Charter board members, however, said they didn’t have firm financials and hadn’t completed the school’s enrollment study at the time of the meeting. Attendance models would help the school better understand the amount of funding the school would receive from the State of Wyoming.

Alpine Airpark Board member Mat Perkins said town leadership could consider a land swap with the airpark in an effort to keep the charter school out of the airpark’s flight path.

When Sanderson asked why the airpark would send a legally threatening letter to the town, Perkins said the private subdivision needed to protect billions of dollars in investment.

The Alpine Airpark is a gated, private subdivision that has direct runway access. The subdivision is north and across the river from the town’s property where the charter is proposed. That 20 acres is next to the Snake River and behind the Alpine riverwalk and Buffalo Drive. It is near Melvin Brewing.

In September, the Town of Alpine granted Mayor Green the authority to issue a “letter of intent” to lease an unspecified amount of town land to the charter school board. Since then, the town has failed to move forward with the lease negotiations. Green has declined to comment on why.

In October, the Wyoming Charter School Authorizing Board voted 6-1 to approve the Academy’s charter school application for Alpine. In its application to the state, the charter school pitched either building a new school or using modular school buildings.

Green said on March 18 that he was hopeful that, between the airpark board and charter school board, a place could be found for the school. Green did not immediately return a call for updated information.

This story was published on March 25, 2025.