7 charters forced to close due to poor academics
Seven Shelby County charter schools, including three run by Memphis’ former mayor and schools superintendent Willie Herenton, will be forced to close at the end of this school year after finding themselves on the state’s Priority List.
About 1,500 students will have to attend a different school next year as a result.
State law requires that school districts revoke the charter of any school that ends up on the list, which is released every three years. The seven schools will be the first in the state to close under that law. The schools closing are: ❚ DuBois Elementary School of Arts Technology
❚ DuBois Middle School of Leadership Public Policy
❚ DuBois Middle School of Arts Technology
❚ City University School Girls Prepa-
ratory
❚ Granville T. Woods Academy of Innovation
❚ Memphis Delta Preparatory Charter ❚ The Excel Center The Tennessee Department of Education released the list Friday afternoon after approval by the State Board of Education.
Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson said the district has aimed to better support charters over the last few years, but the school board will have no choice but to close the schools.
“At the end of the day, we have to follow the law,” he said.
Herenton launched the DuBois consortium of schools six years ago and serves as its superintendent. This spring, he announced he would close his two high schools to focus on his four elementary and middle schools.
Three of the remaining schools will have to close.
Herenton said the consortium’s mission is to operate high-quality schools.
“If we’re falling short on that mission, we take full responsibility for it and we’ll move forward with our remaining school,” he said.
The now-closed high schools also appeared on the list and would have been forced to close if Herenton, who plans to run for mayor again in 2019, had kept them open.
Herenton’s remaining Memphis school, DuBois Elementary School of Entrepreneurship, can remain open. The school was one of 37 in SCS to earn Reward School status. The school currently has about 300 students in a newly constructed building and could double its enrollment if students from one of the closing schools wanted to stay in the DuBois network, Herenton said.
Priority Schools are ones that have been open at least two years and are performing in the bottom 5 percent in the state academically or, in the case of high schools, have graduation rates below 67 percent.
The Excel Center is run by Memphis Goodwill and offers adults the opportunity to earn a full diploma instead of a high school equivalency degree.
Hopson said the district hopes to save the school under a different model known as a contract school.
“While they are on the list, we have been speaking with them about different ways they could operate, because they serve a unique population that we don’t serve,” Hopson said.
Brad Leon, the district’s chief of strategy and performance management, said the board will have to vote on the closures, but that state law dictates how they have to vote. The district will reach out to families of students in charter schools to inform them of their academic options for next year, he said.
“It’s obviously very sad but I think the statute is in the right place and hopefully the families will be able to find stronger options in the year to come,” he said.
Charter schools are public and use public dollars, but are managed by private organizations and overseen, for the most part, by local school districts like SCS.
Charter schools in danger of falling into the bottom 5 percent earned a year of reprieve after the state pushed back the release of the Priority List by one year. Testing failures on TNReady this spring meant the results could not be used against a school, but would be counted if it helped keep a school off the Priority List.
On a more informal list the state released in early 2016 warning schools of their status, three of Herenton’s schools — DuBois Elementary and Middle Schools of Arts and Technology and the DuBois Middle School of Leadership and Public Policy — along with City University Boys Preparatory, were all ranked in the bottom 5 percent. Two additional schools, City University Girls Preparatory and Kipp Memphis Collegiate Middle, hovered just above the bottom 5 percent.
Herenton said his schools improved significantly over the last year, even though it wasn’t enough to save three of them from the Priority List.
“We’ll continue to move forward and provide the best education for the school that will be in operation for the 201920 school year,” Herenton said.
Michael McKenna, the founder of Memphis Delta Prep, a school that will be forced to close, also noted the school’s improvements over the last year. Because last year’s data did not count, and the school just started its third year, the school will be closed based essentially on its first year of test scores, he said in a statement.
“We’re grateful for the privilege to work alongside our families and community on behalf of our kids, and look forward to continuing that partnership for years to come,” McKenna said.
With the nine schools the board approved to open as charters next year, the seven closures will leave SCS with 56 charter schools.
Another 30 operate under the state-run Achievement School District. Those schools are not required to close the first time they end up on the state’s Priority List because the charters took over schools that were already in the bottom 5 percent in the state.
If they are on the list twice, however, ASD charters face the same fate as others across the state.
Reach Jennifer Pignolet at jennifer.pignolet@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @JenPignolet.