JEFFERSON CITY — Charter schools could expand into St. Charles and ºüÀêÊÓƵ counties and Columbia under legislation heard by the House Committee on Special Education Reform on Wednesday.
Currently, Missouri law allows charter schools to operate in ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Kansas City and in unaccredited school districts and some provisionally accredited districts.
Charter schools are publicly funded nonprofits that are operated by unelected boards. School districts in other areas of the state can sponsor their own charter schools, but none have done so.
Rep. Justin Hicks, R-Lake Saint Louis, who is sponsoring the measure to expand charter schools to St. Charles County, said the effort is about ensuring parents have options and kids aren’t “pigeonholed†into public schools when families can’t afford private schools.
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Hicks was appointed as vice chair of Education Reform committee last week.
After filing the bill last month, Hicks’ political action committee, Americans First, received a $10,000 donation from retired ºüÀêÊÓƵ financier and school choice advocate Rex Sinquefield, according to filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Brad Christ, R-south ºüÀêÊÓƵ County, the sponsor of the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County charter school proposal, said the legislation is not an indictment on public schools.
“This is about positive choices for children and families in a system where usually there’s only one choice, and that choice might not fit that student whether it be personal, ideological, but most importantly academic,†Christ said.
Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch, R-Columbia, said that “parents and students are fleeing Columbia Public Schools†and called the district an “asylum†that doesn’t listen to parents.
Enrollment in Columbia schools is 18,198, down five students from last year, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The committee heard a diverse array of public testimony.
Noah Devine, executive director for the Missouri Charter Public School Association, argued for the “philosophical†good of offering more education choices to families.
Otto Fajen, the Missouri National Education Association’s legislative director, said the state’s charter school statute is broken in that it’s missing “an intelligent process†to determine if it makes sense to add a charter school in a school district, given its existing resources and programs.
North ºüÀêÊÓƵ County resident Lisa Smith said that she had to home-school her five-year-old son, who was too scared to go to school after two “terrifying†incidents.
Smith then began working with Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri, a school choice advocacy organization backed by retired ºüÀêÊÓƵ financier Rex Sinquefield, to promote charter expansion.
The legislation comes as Republican leadership in both the House and Senate have said that school choice is a priority this legislative session. And charter school expansion, public school open enrollment and private school vouchers have gotten early attention in committees.
Charters have a mixed record since first opening in ºüÀêÊÓƵ in 2000. More than half of the 37 charter school operators that came to the city have since folded due to financial or academic failures, including La Salle and Hawthorn last year.
The Leadership School in the provisionally accredited Normandy Schools Collaborative opened in 2022 as the first charter in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County.
Two new charter schools were given the green light Wednesday to apply for the 2025-2026 school year in unanimous votes from the board of the Missouri Charter Public School Commission.
Friendly Temple church plans to open Friendly Academy, an elementary school in north ºüÀêÊÓƵ focused on artificial intelligence and entrepreneur programming.
Spark Academy is a proposed middle school in the city’s central corridor, according to its application letter to the commission.
Public school advocates have warned there are too many schools in ºüÀêÊÓƵ for a declining population of children and a critical shortage of teachers.
Enrollment in kindergarten through high school has declined by 400 students in charter schools and nearly 3,000 students in ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools since fall of 2019.