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The Moffat County School District's denial of Dinosaur's request to have a charter school will be challenged, Dinosaur Mayor Richard Blakely said Monday.

"We are working on it," Blakely said. "There is a lot of paper work."

But the charter school committee has yet to hire an attorney or formally submit its appeal to the state school board.

Once an appeal is submitted, the state board has 60 days to hear it and then make a decision to remand it back to the local school board or agree with the original ruling.

"We are hoping we can get it (the appeal) in before it is too late so that we can open this year," Blakely said.

After a decision is remanded to the local school board, the local board has 30 days to reconsider the decision.

"It is hard to say (if the appeal has a chance of allowing the charter school to open in time for fall 2003)," said Denise Mund, director of charter schools for the Colorado Department of Education. "It depends on the merits (of opening the school) and what comes out in the hearings."

When organizers of a Montessori school in Steamboat Springs appealed a denial by the Steamboat Springs School Board, the state board ruled in favor of the organizers.

"Each side has a half an hour to present their case," said Tony Requist, who is on the steering committee for the Montessori school. "After that, the board votes right there on the spot."

Requist said the school needs a majority of the seven-member board for the decision to be remanded.

"The appeal process is so confrontational, if they (the Dinosaur charter school) can open in a non-confrontational atmosphere then they are way ahead of the game," Requist said.

And while the Montessori school organizers have won at the state level each time they have appealed, the school board has refused to sign a contract with them. The decision not to sign a contract with the Montessori school was based on a reading of the law that the decision by the state board was an unfunded mandate, which they may choose to follow or not as stated in Colorado law.

"I used to believe we lived in Colorado, but now I think the board believes we are unique with our own laws," Requist said of the committee's battle for a Montessori school in Steamboat Springs.

Blakely and Requist agree that it has become increasingly hard to work things out with their local school boards.

"It amazes me how we can't get any teamwork, it always has to be a battle," Blakely said.

But until a lawyer is hired, Blakely said the school and all decisions pertaining to it are in limbo.

"We are waiting," he said, "and we could have been almost ready to open by now."

Liz King is an intern with the Craig Daily Press. She can be reached at 824-7031 or eking@craigdailypress.com.