The Opportunity Trust announced Monday that four public charter schools in the city will receive $8 million of the $35.5 million awarded to Missouri by the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Program last fall. This comes after the group faced criticism from public school advocates for not disclosing details about how the money would be used.
The money will be used to bolster the development and expansion of charter schools throughout the state, including creating new charter schools, as well as adding various college preparation and learning programs, grade levels and more.
“This CSP-SE investment from the U.S. Department of Education is a first for Missouri, and we treated it with the urgency it deserves,” said Eric Scroggins, CEO of the Opportunity Trust in a statement. “The most vulnerable children in our community remain significantly behind academically, and these resources will help these schools expand access to their innovative programs, accelerate progress to catch students up, and we believe create new examples of what is possible in public education for our state.”
The grant recipients underwent a rigorous selection process, evaluated by an external peer review panel comprising education experts from across Missouri and the nation, trust officials said.
It’s the beginning of a five-year grant process, said Rachel Powers, a spokeswoman for the trust. “We’re not picking and choosing who gets the money,” Powers said. “We have to follow certain rules and guidelines that the [U.S. Department of Education] sets. There is a selection committee who reviews all of the applications based on the criteria.”
The nonprofit applied as a “state entity” with the U.S. Department of Education, giving it the authority to distribute the funds that were awarded to the state, Powers said. Round 2 of selections will begin in August, Powers said, so trust officials expect more schools across the state to qualify for the grants. This is the first of multiple grant cycles to be administered over the next five years, trust officials said.
The schools that will receive the funding this round include St. Louis Voices Academy, Kairos Academies High School, the Leadership School and Friendly Academy — not to be confused with Friendly Temple Christian Academy in Hamilton Heights. Each school will receive around $2 million for various expansion efforts.
Friendly Academy technically doesn’t exist yet, as it is a new charter school currently in the process of becoming official, and has a state board hearing in the fall. Powers said the school has been approved for the grants but won’t receive the funding unless the school gains final approval.
The money for charter schools comes at a pivotal time for St. Louis Public Schools as enrollment has been declining. Some parents, community members and former educators in north St. Louis don't want a new charter school to open in the St. Louis Public Schools district. They say it will take away public school funding and could even shutter area public schools.
Hollie Russell-West, founder of St. Louis Voices Academy of Media Arts, said its portion of funds will be used to expand creative “flex” spaces that will include flexible seating. The school is also working on adding media labs and another grade level. By fall, Russell-West said the school will go up to second grade.
“We are a media arts and storytelling school, and we can't be that without media arts and storytelling spaces for our kids,” Russell-West said. “We want to design out those spaces. And we really want to be proactive around teacher preparedness for the upcoming grade. We’re investing in teacher residents, who are in the phase of learning, and they get coaching the year prior to becoming a teacher of record.”
The money will also be used to fund purchases of curriculum, technology and school furniture, which will be needed as they add a grade, she added.
At Kairos Academy, Principal Adarue Nduka said the school will use the money for similar things, including investing more in dual enrollment, adding 11th and 12th grades and building out its college program.
“Right now we are partnering with Next Prep,” Nduka said. “They do an amazing job at setting our kids up for their careers and really helping them map those career pathways. And this gives us an additional opportunity to pour more heavily into the college pathway, because we have a lot of students who are really, really interested and excited about going to college.”
And speaking of college, one of her students at Kairos, Ashanti Nurse, who is a sophomore at the high school, agreed.
“My interests are to be a cardiac surgeon when I graduate high school and to go into the health care pathway, go to college, maybe Ivy League,” Nurse said. “So I'm keeping my grades high and also focusing on exploring my options after high school and how to get there.” She spoke highly of Nduka, stating that it’s educators like her who make all the difference in students’ lives.
“[The funding] will help create programs that will help me stay on the pathway that is necessary for me to graduate with the correct things and make sure I have all my credits and also things beyond the regular curriculum such as dual enrollment,” Nurse said.
Editor's note: The Opportunity Trust is a financial supporter of St. Louis Public Radio. STLPR is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations by members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in STLPR's journalism.
