Commission could force Kansas City charter school to close due to low performance
A Kansas City charter school is at risk of closing, with a state commission warning that it intends to revoke its charter following years of poor academic performance.
The Missouri Charter Public School Commission notified Genesis School on Kansas City’s East Side that on June 30, it plans to nullify the charter based on “clear evidence of under performance in academic outcomes.” According to the letter sent last month, the commission also claims that the charter has failed to retain students.
Genesis is appealing the recommendation and has requested a public hearing, hoping to rally the community to fight for the school to stay open. Executive Director Kevin Foster said that since 2020, the charter’s state assessment scores have improved, “despite an unprecedented pandemic” and that it has seen academic growth among the students it serves, many of whom are considered at-risk or below grade level.
“We want to serve this community, these kids, these families. And we want to be able to do that well,” Foster told The Star on Wednesday. “Eliminating the school is not good for the kids that go here and not good for the community.”
Genesis, at 3800 E. 44th St. in the Thornberry Unit of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City, serves roughly 200 students in grades kindergarten through eight. After years of low performance, in 2020, the state agreed to renew Genesis’ five-year charter, but put it on academic probation. The next year, the state school board voted to make the Missouri Charter Public School Commission the school’s sponsor, after the University of Missouri lost its authority to sponsor Genesis and two other charter schools.
Genesis would not be able to operate next school year without a sponsor.
The charter’s student achievement scores have regularly lagged behind the state average, peer schools and Kansas City Public Schools, the state commission says. In three of the last four years, the school’s performance has been below that of KCPS.
And over the past two decades, the commission said students’ academic achievement “has been inadequate to prepare them for success in high school or beyond.”
“While there have been scattered instances of growth, those instances were never sufficient to prepare students for what is next in their lives. Nor were those instances sustained. Instead, (Genesis) regularly showed one or sometimes even two years of improvement, followed by declines,” the commission said in its letter last month.
The commission said that in the 2015-2016 school year, the charter school saw 27% of K-5 students scoring at proficient or advanced levels in English. Five years later, that fell to 2.6%. Over the same time period, the percentage of K-5 students who scored proficient or advanced in math declined from nearly 24% to 8%.
In 2021-22, the commission says, 12.6% of Genesis students in poverty scored proficient in English and math. For students with disabilities, 3.7% scored proficient in English and 0% were proficient in math.
“Those numbers are not even close to being good enough. Behind those numbers are real children who must soon enter middle school unable to read, write or do math at grade level,” the commission said.
But Foster argued that characterization is unfair, and those data points do not tell the full story. He acknowledges that Genesis’ achievement levels have trailed behind the state and the KCPS district average, but said that school officials are focused on guiding students, many of whom are behind grade level, to grow and meet higher academic goals each year.
“Of the seven years that the State of Missouri has reported growth, Genesis growth has been above the state mean five times. Three times, the growth was in the top 20% of districts in the state,” school officials said.
Foster said that the charter’s test scores were lower than expected in both 2018 and 2019, which he attributed to there being a new state achievement test. The school’s growth in 2021, officials said, reflects a strategy to improve achievement as well as “an unmatched commitment to meet students’ needs during COVID.”
“Growth and improvement from pre-pandemic levels is not common within KC, the state or the nation. We are proud of the progress the school and students are making and stand ready to share and defend it,” school officials said in a statement.
Still, the charter commission said that Genesis needs to achieve sustained academic growth never before seen at the school.
Genesis would “need to maintain a consistent and steady growth similar to the top 20% of schools in the state in both (English Language Arts) and Math to reach its performance contract goals,” the commission said in its letter, adding that the school, “has not demonstrated consistent positive growth in either subject over its last two charter terms.”
Genesis, Foster said, has served Kansas City’s East Side for 47 years, and is now one of the state’s oldest charter schools. He said the vast majority of its students live within a few miles of the building.
Foster worries that closing the school would be devastating to the neighborhood.
“Our school community will be harmed if Genesis were no longer a choice for our families,” school officials said. “Other choices that the Commission seems to believe are better choices for our students and families are available to families now, but they choose us.”
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 6:24 PM.
