For the life of a community school, nothing could be more dire than what brought a tense and overflowing crowd into an east Kansas City meeting room the night of Jan. 30.

Genesis School, attorney Chuck Hatfield said, is staring down a “death penalty.”

That is the weight of this moment, he said to the members of the Missouri Charter Public School Commission (MCPSC) who must decide the state commission’s administration’s recommendation that Genesis’ charter be revoked and that the school close effective June 30.

That is the potential consequence in a pitched debate over the school’s academic performance, its struggle for progress and its long-standing role in support of a community that turned out in force to defend their school in the public hearing at the Lucile H. Bluford Public Library.

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It was an emotional hearing that would, as it reached the end of its allotted two hours, spill over with outbursts and cries of appeal.

Hatfield measured the debate that is playing out for the commissioners. He imagined the impact of children put out of their school. Teachers put out of work. He considered comparisons to heavy courtroom decisions, burdens of proof and reasonable doubt.

The commission, he said, “should resolve any doubts in favor of keeping this school open.”

There is no doubt that decisions like the one looming over Genesis are “hard and difficult for us,” MCPSC Commissioner Rev. Antoine Lee said.

He was standing up from the commissioners’ table, facing the audience that had become fraught with emotion and outcries as some of the crowd began accusing the commissioners of not caring.

“I guarantee you we care,” said Lee, one of two members on the seven-member commission from Kansas City. “We came into this meeting conflicted. We came to find out what is going on. I am incredibly proud of you, because our kids deserve to be fought for.”

The commission is expected to make a decision at its meeting Feb. 15.

It will have a lot to unpack.

MCPSC Executive Director Robbyn Wahby laid out the case for revoking the charter, citing what she called 15 years of poor performance below the level of the Kansas City Public Schools in a school that she said prioritizes social services too much over academic performance, with low expectations for students and staff.

“As a charter,” Wahby said, “(Genesis) promises to perform or close.”

Genesis Executive Director Kevin Foster and some of his administration and staff laid out the school’s argument, including data of school growth in the past three years, the school’s commitment to taking in any student at any point of the year and testimony to the skill and dedication of Genesis’ teachers.

“We made growth (in the past three years) despite the pandemic,” he said. “I am proud of the staff and the school community.”

Hatfield retraced the Genesis’ recent charter history — originally under sponsorship of the University of Missouri-Kansas City, then sponsored by the University of Missouri-Columbia, and that it only came under control of the MCPSC with a contract signed last July.

Genesis, Hatfield argued, has not been given the time allowed to carry out intervention plans in the contract.

“Revocation,” Hatfield said, if it were to happen at this point in the contract, “is not lawful.”

If the MCPSC commissioners were to revoke Genesis’ charter, Genesis can appeal to the state school board.

The members of the community who spoke at the hearing urged the commissioners to allow Genesis to remain open. The school deserves the commission’s support and its partnership, many said.

One of the testimonies came from Isaiah Veal, a recent Genesis alum now enrolled and excelling at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy in the Kansas City Public Schools.

His family had lived in the Park Hill School District, he said, where his difficulties in school put him on a course to be expelled. He has turned his fortunes around to be on track for college, he said, because of the teachers who guided him.

“No school would take me in,” he said, “but Genesis.”

By Joe Robertson/LINC Writer