Genesis School charter revoked; expects to appeal to state school board
By a 6-to-1 decision, the Missouri Charter Public School Commission voted to revoke Genesis School’s charter Feb. 15 — a decision that Genesis expects it will appeal to the state school board.
The MCPSC commissioners met online and called for the vote on Genesis’ charter with little discussion. The audio for the virtual meeting did not pick up the voiced votes by several of the commissioners, but the MCPSC confirmed that a Kansas City member on the statewide panel, Antoine Lee, was the only no vote.
The vote came just over two weeks after an emotional public hearing at Kansas City’s Bluford Public Library in which supporters of the school overflowed a crowded meeting room to defend and praise the charter community school at 3800 E. 44th Street.
LINC provides Caring Communities services to help support the school’s families.
If the state school board supports the MCPSC’s decision to revoke Genesis’ charter, the school would have to close effective June 30 and the commission would begin a process of notifying parents of the decision and directing them to other school options — either other charter schools or Kansas City Public Schools.
The majority of the commission followed MCPSC Executive Director Robbyn Wahby’s recommendation for revocation, which she said was necessary because Genesis’ academic performance over the past 15 years fell too far below the level of the Kansas City Public Schools.
The charter school had “broken its promise,” she said at the public hearing, because of academic results she said were “devastating.”
Genesis argued that the school has been making progress above the pace of other Kansas City Public Schools and the state since 2020. The school only came under contract with the MCPSC in July, and Genesis Executive Director Kevin Foster said the commission has not given the school the opportunity to show progress under the new contract.
In the public hearing, attorney Chuck Hatfield, representing Genesis, said revoking the school’s charter at this time would be unlawful.
Genesis, which has been a charter school since 1999, was originally sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and then moved under sponsorship with the University of Missouri-Columbia when UMKC dropped its charter school program in 2017.
The MCPSC, a state commission created in 2012 to sponsor charter schools, took Genesis under its control from the University of Missouri in December 2021 as one of three schools taken from the university over concerns of performance.
The statewide commission’s portfolio has grown as universities began reducing their number of sponsorships. MCPSC now sponsors 14 of the 20 charter schools in Kansas City.