Columnist Jamala Rogers
If you have read my columns for any length of time, you know that I am not a champion of charter schools. They are often held up as a magical, successful alternative to public schools, yet they use public dollars with less accountability to State regulations than their public counterpart and they frequently subordinate the needs of students in order to maintain a profit.
Still, I felt sad when I heard that Ethel Hedgeman Lyle College Prep Academy may be shutting its doors on its young but tumultuous infancy.
The Omicron Theta Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) set up the charter school in 2000 and expanded it in 2005 to include grades K-10. The academy was named in honor of their founder, Ethel Hedgeman Lyle. She is an African-American woman befitting of the homage.
A St. Louis native, Lyle graduated with honors from Sumner High School and received a scholarship to Howard University. It was there that she organized the country’s first black campus sorority in 1908. She went on to commit her life to education and service to her community – my kind of sistah.
Lyle Academy started out with great promise. The founders were AKA members, many of them educators from public school districts. The first nail in Lyle Academy’s coffin was hooking up with Imagine Schools.
There were complaints from charter schools all over the country and even by the now-defunct Thurgood Marshall Charter School about the lack of management that was agreed upon by both parties. Bells and whistles should have sounded when charter school officials signed the management contract, which basically stays in place until death do they part – that is, death of the charter school. What a way to get out of an agreement.
In the last few years, issues and events took a turn for the worse. Harris-Stowe State University, the sponsoring institution, dropped them for allegedly adding the middle and high school components without consultation with them. Stowe was replaced by Missouri Baptist University, which soon joined in the brawl between Lyle and Imagine. It was not a pretty picture.
Another nail to Lyle’s coffin was when Imagine split, taking a large percent of the students with them. A bunch of disgusted and battle-fatigued teachers also departed.
Lyle then actively recruited any and every body to get their numbers up. A teacher who asked to remain anonymous says this included students kicked out of other districts whose negative behavior soon infected the entire school. Chaos became the norm, and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department reported over 130 calls to the school. The teacher felt like the academic year went down the drain.
The Lyle troubles had me thinking more about what it takes to start and maintain a school. There are certain features built into the school bureaucracy that private and charters schools don’t have.
Like a centralized method of ordering books and supplies (which were reported as being ordered late by Lyle).
Like a process for screening and hiring competent teachers (a few teachers with criminal backgrounds slipped through at Lyle).
Like a centralized finance system to help with bookkeeping and audits.
Like staff training when particular issues arise, like dealing with disrespectful, belligerent students.
Educating children, under whatever banner, is the obligation of the State. It is not an easy task, but at this stage of the game we know what works in urban settings. For the local and State boards of education to allow the disintegration of Lyle is definitely irresponsible, and all contributors to the failure of the school should be made accountable.
Unless something magical happens, Lyle Academy will collapse under its own organizational, financial and academic weight. It’s beginning to look like the Ethel Hedgeman Lyle College Prep Academy will never get the chance to grow up.