Later this year, a new charter school-BELIEVE St. Louis Academy-with a focus on preparing students for future independence and success, will open in the city.
Starting in the 2024-2025 academic year, BELIEVE will serve 100 ninth graders, with a new grade added every subsequent year until it reaches its total projected enrollment of almost 450 students.
The tuition-free, public early college and career preparatory high school that’s dedicated to “closing the income gap for the next generation” will offer advanced placement and honors courses, a program for the “gifted and talented,” regular field trips, financial literacy classes and free transportation.
The charter high school is the vision of St. Louisan, Kimberly Neal-Brannum, who started her teaching career at Vashon High School. The career educator said she considers opening a new school in St. Louis an honor that will enhance the city’s educational landscape.
“The opportunity to return home to serve the community that raised me is legacy work. I BELIEVE our school will have a positive impact on generations to come,” said Neal-Brannum.
The new charter school will be the second founded by Neal-Brannum. In 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic started to surge- she launched Believe Circle City High School in Indianapolis, IN. With a student-to-teacher ratio of 11-to-1, the public charter school hosts 120 students in grades 9-11 with a total minority enrollment of 98% with 87% of its students categorized as “economically disadvantaged.”
The Indianapolis charter school, according to BELIEVE officials, is ranked #2 in that region on the SAT reading and writing section and 85% of its eleventh and twelfth graders are participating in dual enrollment, taking both high school and college courses.
The St. Louis-based school will replicate the Indianapolis school’s successful model. Officials with BELIEVE St. Louis Academy say the school will be “a health science-centered early college and career high school focused on preparing students for future independence and success, particularly in the healthcare industry.”
It has already secured partnerships with BJC Healthcare and other higher education partners such as St. Louis Community College (STLCC) and Harris-Stowe State University (HSSU).
Through these partnerships, school officials stress that students will have the opportunity to participate in one of six health science professional pathways including nursing, respiratory, and radiology. Additionally, students who participate in dual enrollment will graduate with college credits, associate degrees, and/or industry-recognized certificates, “which will allow them to directly enter the workforce upon graduation or continue to pursue higher education in health science fields.”
Opponents of the new school-which include the American Federation of Teachers (Local 420), some community members and St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) District-don’t necessarily share Neal-Brannum’s optimism. Some criticize charter schools in general, claiming they receive public funds even though they’re exempt from certain laws that govern traditional public schools. Others define charter schools as “for-profit gambles” that undermine public educationbyutilizing taxpayer dollars which deprives already struggling public schools of needed resources.
As families continue to move out of the city, the number of students enrolled in SLPS has dropped by nearly half since the turn of the century. Last year, school board member Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge expressed worries about opening more charter schools as the city’s population decreases.
“My bigger, broader, most pressing concern is that the city of St. Louis is shrinking and at the same time we also need high-quality education options. So somehow, we need to balance the need for quality with the fact that our tax base is evaporating,” said Westbrooks-Hodge.
Neal-Brannum disagrees with those who feel BELIEVE will deduct already scarce resources allocated to public schools.
“We want to bring kids back to the city,” she countered, adding: “Some of the loss that we’re experiencing in the city has been because parents have not been able to find quality options. I think parents are looking for what’s best for their child and if they can’t currently find that, they’re going to figure it out.”
As far as robbing the city of economic resources, Neal-Brannum argues that BELIEVE has already raised significant operational funds.
“We’ve already raised over a million dollars, pre-launch that is not coming from the district,” she stated. “It came from writing grants, not only to foundations but to the federal government. We’re not coming to take resources away. We’re doing the opposite; starting our school with resources that we’ve worked really hard to get.”
Believe will be funded in part by local charter school funder, Opportunity Trust, which was recently gifted a $35 million U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Program entity award grant-a first for the state of Missouri.
Last year, SLPS filed a lawsuit claiming the charter school did not provide them with a copy of their application within five days of filing as required by law. In a recent press release, BELIEVE officials maintain that they did properly notify the district but instead of “engaging in a long legal battle, they decided to resubmit their same application.”
“It was much more important to us to start educating students…using our innovative early college and career preparation curriculum than fight the district’s legal challenge,” Neal-Brannum said in a press release.
Despite the SLPS’ lawsuit and protests from the teacher’s union and some community members, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education approved the application for Believe STL Charter in December.
As a St. Louis native, Neal-Brannum said she wasn’t prepared for the pushback and was most surprised by what she defined as “oppositional energy” around school choice and serving kids in the city.
“For me, I felt like ‘I’m coming home to serve my community.’ So, this was an unanticipated push that I was not necessarily expecting.”
Most of Neal-Brannum’s frustration about union and school district pushback, she said, is that it isn’t centered on positive outcomes for St. Louis students.
“The conflict has been between adults. At no point in any of the conversations that we’re having are we talking about life outcomes, proficiency, graduation rates…let’s talk data points that impact the kids we serve,” Neal-Brannum vented.
“Let’s talk back and forth about the kids that we serve and not slander about who’s cool with who or who’s funding who. It should be about what services we’re providing for our kids who are most underestimated and have been historically under-sourced.
“That’s what I care about. Everything else is just noise to me.”
An official physical location for the school has not yet been announced. Parents interested in enrolling their children in BELIEVE St. Louis Academy should go online and complete the school’s “enrollment Interest” form or email Principal Resident Jawn Manning at jmanning@believeschools.org.
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.
