With less than two years in the books, Libre Academy in Litchfield is looking for a new sponsor.

Sobriety High Foundation notified Libre officials in mid-March it would no longer manage the day-to-day operations of the sober school, leaving the school to weigh its options and turn to organizations like the Litchfield School District for support.

Libre Academy opened in 2005 as a campus of Sobriety High School, a sober school that provides adolescents recovering from chemical addictions a four-year comprehensive, high school diploma program in a chemical-free environment.

The Sobriety High Foundation, which provides financial support to four-metro area Sobriety Highs, helped Libre off the ground with the intention that Libre would quickly receive charter school status and then officially join Sobriety High School district.

However, Libre has been unable to earn charter school status. So, the foundation decided it was better for the organization to focus on fundraising instead of actual management of the school, interim Executive Director Beth Zemsky said.

The foundation is not set up to run daily school operations and decided an organization familiar with school operations would be better suited to helping Libre, which operates as a contracted alternative school.

“It’s really about who will help Libre Academy be more successful,” she said. “The foundation is still committed and wants to help it be successful.”

Libre Academy Director Terry Singsank admitted he was irritated by the foundation’s decision to retract its support of the school. He thought the foundation was overly optimistic about the number of students its first outstate school would serve and panicked when enrollees didn’t flock to the school.

With a 20-bed chemical treatment facility for youth soon to open in Litchfield, Singsank hopes enrollment numbers will increase for the 2007-08 school year.

“I just don’t think two years are enough to be able to say, ‘we can make our decision now and this just isn’t going to work,’” he said. “I would have liked them to give us at least one more year to see how it would have operated with the treatment center in town.”

Read about the next step for Libre Academy and it’s discussions with the Litchfield School District in the April 12 print edition or subscribe to our online E-Edition.