JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri State Board of Education on Tuesday approved the renewal of two ºüÀêÊÓƵ charter schools after board members complained about their lack of authority over the schools.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ Language Immersion School and the Soulard School each received five-year extensions of their charter contracts. Under Missouri law, the ability to open and close a charter school lies with the sponsor. The University of Missouri-ºüÀêÊÓƵ sponsors both of the schools up for renewal.
“I understand we don’t have the authority …, but we certainly have the ability to speak to UMSL and say, ‘Why in the world do you allow that kind of failure to continue and just simply want to apply for another five years,’†board member Peter Herschend of Branson said during the monthly meeting which has become a regular forum for criticism of state charter school laws.
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Charter schools are publicly funded and independently operated by nonprofit boards. They are tuition-free and open to students living in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, Kansas City and a few chronically underperforming districts.
ºüÀêÊÓƵ Language Immersion School opened in 2009 and offers half-day immersion in Chinese, French or Spanish for kindergarten through eighth grade. The school’s students routinely outperform ºüÀêÊÓƵ Public Schools on standardized tests, with 34% testing proficient in English and 26% in math last spring. The SLPS average was 21% proficient in English and 16% in math.
With 398 students this year, the language school has experienced the region’s steepest decline in enrollment from a high of 916 students a decade ago. One challenge for the school is an inability to replace departing students in higher grades because of the advanced foreign language curriculum. The school opened an accelerated French program this fall for older students which gave a slight boost to enrollment at the Downtown West campus.
The Soulard School converted from a private to a charter school in fall 2019 for financial reasons. As a private school with sliding scale tuition, Soulard received an average of $4,500 a year per student. The school last year took in $13,327 per student in local, state and federal tax dollars.
Last spring, 52% of the school’s students tested proficient in English and 35% in math.
Board member Kerry Casey of Chesterfield said she expected higher results from the school because of the demographics of the student population. Soulard School has 137 students in kindergarten through fifth grades. Two-thirds of the students are white, and 22.5% qualify for free or reduced lunch — a rate lower than suburban districts like Mehlville and Maplewood Richmond Heights.
The Soulard School is “another one we should be looking at and learn from and understand why aren’t they doing better because of the resources they have, the few students that they have,†Casey said at the meeting.
The first charter schools opened in Missouri 24 years ago with the hope of a better education for students in the struggling urban districts of ºüÀêÊÓƵ and Kansas City. More than half of the 37 charter school systems that have since opened in ºüÀêÊÓƵ were shut down for academic or financial failures.
State board president Charlie Shields, a Republican from St. Joseph, was serving in the Missouri Legislature when charter schools were approved.
Shields said Tuesday that legislators had accomplished one of two main goals with charter schools — providing choices. But the other goal of removing government regulations as “the secret sauce that drove student success†has not proven true, he said.
“Student success is way more complicated and has multiple factors that go way beyond just having a lack of regulation and more flexibility,†he said. “There’s no question that for the most part the sponsors and the charters are well meaning and trying to accomplish great things. It’s just not as easy as everybody thought it was going to be.â€
School choice advocates in the Legislature are again trying to expand charters, including a bill from Rep. Justin Hicks, R-Lake Saint Louis, that would allow the schools to open in St. Charles County.