Kansas City charter school keeps up fight, sues Missouri board over ‘unlawful’ closure

One day after the Missouri Board of Education voted to close Genesis, the Kansas City charter school is suing, calling the process unlawful.

On Monday, the state school board unanimously agreed to close the East Side school, affirming a decision by the school’s sponsor to revoke its charter. Officials cited 15 years of low academic performance and a failure to properly educate its students and train teachers.

It’s an almost unheard of move in Missouri to revoke a school’s charter in the middle of its contract.

Genesis has continually argued that its sponsor, the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, breached its contract and unlawfully nullified its charter. Ahead of Monday’s board vote, Missouri Education Commissioner Margie Vandeven acknowledged, “There are concerns about how the charter commission proceeded with the revocation.” And she said “it is clear” the “process was deficient.”

But, Vandeven argued, “there are more significant concerns with allowing the school to continue to remain open when it’s threatened the educational security of its students and has for a number of years.”

Now, Genesis is suing the commission and state board of education in Cole County Court in Jefferson City, arguing that the charter revocation should be invalidated.

Genesis Executive Director Kevin Foster said he is “extremely disappointed” in the decision to close the K-8 school. But in a statement he said, “Even more disappointing was the apparent lack of seriousness and deliberation given to their decision that directly impacts the 210 students, 40 staff members and institution older than the Charter Statute itself.

“After admitting that the process followed by MCPSC was ‘deficient’ and ‘raises concerns,’ the Commissioner of Education presented new and separate justification when recommending the State Board vote take the unprecedented action of voting to close the school despite our contract.”

A spokeswoman with the Missouri department of education said she could not comment on pending litigation. The charter commission did not immediately return The Star’s request for comment Wednesday, but leaders have previously defended the process and stood behind their decision to close the school they say has broken promises to their students for years.

Genesis charter school’s argument

In revoking the charter, the state commission has pointed to Genesis’ history of low academic performance, with the school continually scoring behind the state average and Kansas City Public Schools.

In the 2021-2022 school year, for example, the commission said only 13 out of 100 students performed at or above grade level in English and math. Commission leaders say the school has failed to adequately prepare students for high school and beyond.

School officials and teachers counter that test results are not an accurate indicator of their students’ growth, many of whom are considered at-risk and transfer to Genesis testing in the lowest percentile.

Typically, a sponsor decides whether to renew or revoke a school’s charter at the end of its performance contract. Genesis’ contract would have been up at the end of next school year, “so canceling in the middle of the contract is very strange,” said Charles Hatfield, the school’s attorney.

Under state statute, a sponsor may revoke a charter in the middle of its term if there is clear evidence of low scores in the school’s annual performance report in three of the last four school years or if there’s a violation of the law or the public trust.

The charter commission says Genesis under-performed for each of the last three years for which performance data may be used by the state for school accountability. That does not include more recent reports, which were not used to hold schools accountable because the required state assessments were canceled during the pandemic, and test scores have dropped overall since.

Genesis argues that the commission should have relied on the school’s annual performance reports from the last four years. Foster said Genesis has seen student performance improve since the pandemic, as students continued to learn in person. The school says 2021 state assessment data shows growth in both English and math, as well as a 15% reduction in the amount of students scoring below basic in English.

“We feel the law is pretty clear that they’re supposed to look at the last four years to determine under-performance or not,” Hatfield said.

School leaders also believe the charter commission was in breach of the contract because it did not provide Genesis with enough notice or calls for corrective action, as laid out in the agreement, in advance of announcing its intent to revoke the charter.

Under their contract, the commission may revoke the school’s charter if Genesis breaches the performance contract, fails to meet performance measures or fails to adhere to mandated corrective actions. Genesis argues in its lawsuit that the commission did not revoke its charter for reasons allowed in the contract.

“The process ought to be collaborative, wherein the sponsor of the charter school makes every effort to get the charter school in line with its goals on educating kids,” Hatfield said. “This was more like a prosecutor kind of approach.”

But Robbyn Wahby, executive director of the state charter commission, previously said Genesis has broken the promises it made in its contract, not only with the commission, but with previous sponsors as well.

She said the commission has provided the school with several warnings, but Genesis leaders have not proven they have the urgency or plan in place to improve student achievement or adequately prepare teachers to lead classrooms.

During Monday’s state school board meeting, Foster said he was disappointed that members did not discuss Genesis’ performance data or ask questions about Vandeven’s opinion that the revocation process was deficient.

A drawn-out fight

Genesis has served at-risk students since 1975 and is now one of Missouri’s oldest charter schools.

The charter school was first sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The University of Missouri-Columbia later took that over and in 2020 renewed the charter, but put the school on probation due to its low test scores.

But the university later lost the authority to sponsor Genesis and two other charter schools. Last year, the state charter commission became Genesis’ new sponsor.

Last spring, the commission told Genesis the school was not meeting standards, so it outlined performance goals for a new contract, signed in July. Two months later, the commission notified Genesis it intended to move forward with revoking its charter unless the school agreed to relinquish its charter. Genesis refused.

In December, the commission told Genesis it was moving forward with nullifying its charter. It held a hearing, where dozens of families fought for the school to stay open. And in February, the commission voted 6-1 to revoke the charter, a decision Genesis appealed.

But the state board of education this week agreed with the commission’s decision.

“I appreciate that they care for their kids. But they’re not educating those kids,” board member Peter Herschend said. “And for that reason, it would be criminal neglect if we just said, ‘that’s OK, continue as you are.’”

Before their vote, a few board members repeated an anecdotal statistic from member Carol Hallquist, who said some Kansas City leaders told her there were Genesis students six years behind grade level. In its lawsuit, Genesis states, “there is no evidence, or any record, that any child attending Genesis is six years behind on their education.”

Hallquist, of Kansas City, said during Monday’s meeting that Genesis is “beloved by the community. It has stellar relationships with parents, it’s unmatched. And their wraparound services are so helpful for the students there. It’s a challenging group. ... But our duty on the state board is to ensure that every Missouri student gets a quality education.”

While the battle is rare for Missouri, Hatfield pointed to a 2014 lawsuit won by Gordon Parks Elementary School. Although the circumstances were different, a Cole County judge ruled that the Missouri state school board violated state law when it denied the Kansas City school a new charter. The school was allowed to stay open.