Saint Louis — Mayor Francis Slay is spending most of the first day of school visiting charter schools while touting a new trend of academic growth.
Slay started his day at the state’s first all-girls public STEM school, Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls. The school specializes in science, technology, engineering and math. Slay also touted the opening of a total of eight new charter schools this fall in the St. Louis region including: KIPP Wisdom Elementary School, KIPP Triumph Middle School, EAGLE Preparatory Academy Fox Park, EAGLE Preparatory Academy Tower Grove South, South City Preparatory Academy High School, The Biome School, and LaSalle Middle School.
The new openings bring the total number of charter schools in the City of St. Louis to 34. Slay’s office said that the growth in charter schools was a key element in improving education in the city.
“Given the growth of quality charter schools and with the addition of pre-K and new schools from St. Louis Public Schools, public school enrollment has increased in for the first time in 50 years,” Slay’s office wrote in a statement. “36 percent of the children in the City are attending a school that meets state standard. In 2008, only 18 percent of City students were in schools that met half state standard or better.”
In the Missouri legislature, charter schools remain a point of sometimes-bitter debate when lawmakers wrangle with the state’s student transfer law.
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
