BOZEMAN — In a Bozeman School Board meeting held Monday, a unanimous vote was made to dissolve Bozeman Charter School.

The program, originally called Bozeman Online Charter School, was launched in 2021 in response to the pandemic. The school provided grades 3 through 8 with online learning.

When the program first started, it served around 100 students per academic school year. This year, Bozeman Charter School did not run due to enrollment dropping to around 30 students. According to Casey Bertram, superintendent for Bozeman Public Schools, they were not meeting the minimum enrollment thresholds to make the program cost-effective, which led to the unanimous decision to dissolve the school.

“Really, it’s tied to student interest and family interest. And right now, for the vast majority of our parents and community members? Our in-person instruction by our high-quality staff, five days of in-person instruction is the go-to,” says Bertram.

Bertram tells me the small staff that ran Bozeman Charter School will be repurposed into their brick-and-mortar schools. And the majority of students returned to in-person classes.