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by Daniel Cooper, Atlas High School

Over the past seven months our team, our partners, and hundreds of Queenstown families poured themselves into the Atlas High School application. The goal was to prove that a community-owned, not-for-profit, fees-free model could give our young people real choice in a one-school town that is loudly asking for it. I’m proud of the work we did, and even prouder of the community that stood up for it.

Last week we announced that our proposal was rejected.

After strong local coverage and many heartfelt letters, the Charter School Agency wrote to us confirming decisions are final for now and that feedback will follow when the overall process concludes. We appreciate the acknowledgement and recognise they’re making hard calls under real constraints.

Two things drove Atlas from day one, innovation in education and serving a clear community need.

To us, engaging students meant community-powered learning that was relevant, purposeful, and future-focused. Atlas would have met young people where they are as our region grows fast and the world shifts at speed. The community was ready to engage too - through our networks and pledged support, students would have worked alongside hundreds of local experts across current and emerging industries, all eager to back the next generation. Our model linked learning to each student’s interests and to practical applications solving real local problems, earning credits through authentic learning, and built the confidence to take risks and fail forward in pursuit of great things.

Families have asked for secondary educational choices that didn’t depend on fees or moving away. Philanthropy stepped forward so public funds would be protected. Our community built this proposal, and gutted is an understatement as to how it turned out.

Thank you to the scores of people who wrote a message on our public forum or reached out to our elected representatives. What I have read is raw, devastating, and specific. Atlas was never “ours” alone. It belonged to this place from day one.

Where to from here? We’ll read any feedback from the Agency carefully when it comes. If a new round opens, we’ll decide together whether to step forward again. In the meantime we’ll keep advocating for choice, excellence, equity, and community ownership in secondary education here in the Whakatipu.

To everyone who invested time, ideas, resources, and heart: thank you. You turned a proposal into a movement. We gave it our best shot, and we’ll keep showing up, together, until our young people have the options they deserve.