Original Research by School Decision on Cornerstone Charter Schoolinc (79077)
Cornerstone Charter SchoolInc is a district that no longer operates any school. Its sole campus, Cornerstone Charter School, closed permanently in January 2024. The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools received notice of the closure on January 4, 2024, and the school’s own website states it does not intend to reopen. For any parent or resident looking into this district, this is the single most consequential fact: the district is effectively defunct. There is no school to attend, no programs to evaluate, no upcoming enrollment.
Before its closure, the district served grades nine through twelve with a single high school. Enrollment was small. The student body was predominantly Hispanic, with smaller shares of Black students, White students, American Indian or Alaska Native students, and small numbers of Asian students and students identifying as two or more races. No data was reported for students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, nor for students receiving special education services or English learner support, so a parent’s ability to gauge the economic or learning-support profile of the school was limited.
The district reported no state assessment results and no graduation rate. For a high school, these are critical measures of academic performance, and their absence means there is no public record of how students performed on state tests or how many completed high school within four years. The chronic absenteeism rate, however, was very high, placing the district in the bottom quarter among Maricopa County’s districts. Per-pupil current spending was on the higher end relative to other districts in the county, though without test results or graduation rates it is impossible to connect that spending to student outcomes.
The district’s sole school, Cornerstone Charter School, is listed as open in the directory but its lifecycle status was recorded before the closure. The Arizona State Board for Charter Schools and GreatSchools both confirm the school is closed, and the school’s own website states it will not reopen. No other schools are attached to this district.
For a parent or resident, the takeaway is straightforward. Cornerstone Charter SchoolInc once offered a small high school option in the Phoenix area, but it is no longer running. Anyone seeking a school for a high school student would need to look elsewhere. The data that does exist—high chronic absenteeism, no public academic records—is unlikely to be useful for decision-making because the district simply is not an active choice.
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