September 18, 2018
For Immediate Release
Contact: Robbyn Wahby, 314-374-8339
KANSAS CITY— Kansas City’s first all-girls charter school won approval today from the Missouri Board of Education, its final regulatory hurdle. “Today’s State Board decision gives families in Kansas City a new educational option for their daughters,” said Roger Dorson, interim commissioner of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “Kansas City Girls Preparatory Academy has an exciting opportunity to help Missouri ensure that all students graduate ready to succeed.”
KCGPA will open in an as yet-to-be-announced location in northeast Kansas City in August, 2019. To start, it will enroll 100 fifth grade girls, add one new grade per year, eventually growing to a 5th - 8th grade middle school, and a 9th - 12th grade high school. They expect that nearly three-quarters of their students will be African American or Hispanic. “We are appreciative of the confidence shown in our model and our leadership,” said Tom Krebs, the chief executive officer of the new school. “It is our goal to provide all of our young women access to a broad range of high-quality educational opportunities from early learning into post-high school engagement.”
Charter schools cannot open in Missouri without a state-authorized sponsor and approval from the Missouri Board of Education. KCGPA is being sponsored by the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, which was established in 2012 by the Missouri General Assembly. It is an independent commission appointed by the governor with the authority to sponsor high quality charter public schools, and hold them accountable. “The commission will play two roles in the new school. We will provide oversight to ensure parents that their girls are getting a quality education, and we will provide technical assistance to the governing board and leadership of the school to help them achieve that goal,” said Robbyn Wahby, executive director of the MCPSC.
The leadership of the new school will also get and has already gotten expert assistance from the Missouri Charter Public School Association, which was created for just that purpose. “It is our mission to help improve student achievement in Missouri through the charter school model,” said Dr. Doug Thaman, executive director of the Association.”We were delighted to guide and support KCGPA and are confident they will provide students with an excellent education.”
Wahby told the State Board of Education today that this will be the first all-girl charter school in Kansas City. “This school will provide an inclusive, affirming, and academically challenging experience that enables young women in a college-preparatory program to achieve success in college, become civic-minded leaders, and be resilient life-long learners,” she told the Board.
KCGPA will be an affiliate of the Young Women’s Leadership Network (YWLN), a national network of 18 all-girls schools that has prepared thousands of young women from low-income neighborhoods to go to college. Consistent with YWLN’s other schools, the new Kansas City charter public school will have a longer school day, high academic standards, teach young women to develop their own voices, and build the academic skills and knowledge they need to succeed in their careers and their personal lives.
“We are going to start an all-girls school because we believe too many young women, especially of color, are not receiving an equitable education,” said Krebs. ”That’s why this school will focus on serving young women and providing strong access to topics that traditionally schools have assumed girls are not good at. This school will address a pressing need for more opportunities for young women in Kansas City.”
Charter schools are public schools. So, KCGPA will be free and open to all Kansas City girls, and there will be no admission exam. The school will be held accountable to state standards by a community board, its sponsor the Charter Public School Commission, and by the State Board of Education. They operate independently of the local district and are free from the entanglements of a large bureaucracy.
KCGPA will teach students of all academic abilities. The school will be prepared to serve students with special educational needs exceptionally well, including students with learning disabilities and students who speak a language other than English at home. The academics will be rigorous with 32% more time in the class room through a longer school day and extended school year. The teachers will challenge their students to be voracious readers and good writers. But, the school will also offer advanced science, technology, engineering, arts and math classes.
The school administrators, including Tara Haskins, the school’s principal, will expect a great deal from their teachers and will support them with 30 full days of professional development each school year. This strong foundation will allow them to use their knowledge, professional training and imagination to create their own class-room experience and curriculum.
Approval of the application by the Missouri State Board of Education is the final step in the regulatory process. KCGPA has not chosen a specific location yet. But, the new school will be in the boundaries of the Kansas City Public School District, in a neighborhood whose families have been hurt by racial and economic segregation, and may not have access to a quality public school where they live.
Parents with a girl entering the 5th grade in 2019 are invited to get more information by going to the Commission’s web site at https://mcpsc.mo.gov/ or the school’s website at https://kcgpa.org/(link is external).