Life Skills Center of Denver filed an appeal today with the Colorado State Board of Education to stay open and serve more than 260 Denver area high school dropouts.

Last month, the Denver Public School Board turned down a request for a charter renewal, but Life Skills is challenging it on the grounds that the DPS board based its decision on misinformation about the school’s attendance record and student academic progress.

Located at West 10th Avenue and Cherokee Street, Life Skills is an alternative charter school for high school students, classified as at-risk or troubled who have dropped out of DPS, in an effort to put them back on track to earn a diploma.

The charter entered into an agreement with Ohio-based White Hat Management in 2004 as an alternative to students having a hard time making it in traditional schools. But the DPS board voted 6-1 to shut the Center down saying it was plagued with low test scores, poor attendance, poor retention of students and complaints that White Hat was getting paid for claiming more students than it had.

Life Skills counters saying attendance records are at nearly 60 percent for a student population of former dropouts that had a zero attendance. The school also argues that students’ academic progress should be based on the performance those enrolled for 12 consecutive months, while DPS staff reported on academic performance of students who were only attending the alternative education school for a short period of time.