Denise Mund worked for the Colorado Department of Education for almost 13 years. During that time the charter school unit grew to become the Schools of Choice Unit and the number of charter schools grew from less than 50 to more than 170. Denise served as the Director of the Schools of Choice Unit and as Interim Director of Online Learning. In that capacity, Denise managed the federal Charter School Program startup and implementation grant; facilitated meetings for charter school authorizers, provided extensive training for charter school leaders and served as the primary contact for the State Board of Education on charter school issues. Denise has attended more than 85 charter school appeal hearings and brought in more than 112 million dollars in charter school grants.
Denise is a co-founder of the three Jefferson Academy Charter Schools and Lincoln Academy Charter School. She served as the governing board president at Jefferson Academy for seven years and has also served on the boards at Colorado Virtual Academy and Woodrow Wilson Academy.
While working for the state department, Denise helped write several state level resources, including the Standard Application, Checklist for Completeness and Review Rubric, the sample Contract Language and the accompanying narrative document, the Governing Board Handbook, and many of the technical assistance resources on the CDE website.
Denise also served on the House Bill 10-1412 committee which was established by statute to recommend charter school and charter school authorizer standards for State Board of Education rule and was a primary contributor to the committee’s final report.