CPS files new lawsuit against state in battle over charter school

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia Public Schools argues in a new lawsuit that the Missouri State Board of Education violated state law in its approval of a Frontier Schools charter school in April.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, CPS asks the court to throw out the vote and Frontier's license to operate in Boone County.

The city argues that Frontier failed to notify CPS of the charter school's plans ahead of its submission to the new school's sponsor, St. Louis University, and failed to submit its application as being sponsored by SLU to the state Board of Education on time.

CPS also claims the state board did not review applications from Frontier or SLU and instead watched a presentation by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on how Frontier meets state qualifications, which CPS alleges has several factual errors, including that Frontier inaccurately fulfilled application requirements.

"Because they’ve met all the requirements which we have said they’re required to meet, we have no other option but to support this," Board Member Brooke Smelser said during the meeting, according to court documents.

CPS also argued that an improper vote was used to approve the Frontier school, with the board using a general "All those in favor?" vote instead of an individual roll call. The board also later inaccurately posted in meeting minutes that the vote was unanimous.

According to prior reporting, Democrat Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge voted against the application.

"They [Board of Education] abdicated their role in reviewing and properly vetting the application and instead delegated that to DESE, which is a violation of state statute," Waters said.

The Missouri Board of Education has been notified of CPS' second lawsuit.

Columbia Public Schools was also back in court Tuesday for a hearing in the months-long battle over rules on charter school eligibility.

The fight centers on Senate Bill 727. Passed in 2024, it states that charter schools can operate in counties "between 150,000 and 200,000 inhabitants." While the bill does not name Boone County, it is the only county in the state that fits this description.

During Tuesday's arguments, the state argued that the main qualifications needed for a county are a large population to staff the school, well-educated parents who are more likely to express an interest in additional school choice and the presence of a doctoral research university.

"Boone County’s unique achievement gaps, its high proportion of college-educated adults, and
the presence of the University of Missouri’s flagship campus. These all make Boone
County unique as compared to other counties," the state said in court documents.

They added that counties with populations larger than 200,000 like St. Louis County or Jackson and Clay County already have a variety of public and private schools.

"St. Louis County has both twenty-four separate public-school districts and the highest concentration of private schools in the State, making it reasonably unlikely that charter schools could reach any level of sustained success," the state said in court documents.

CPS argued the law is unreasonable because charter schools affect individual school districts, not entire counties. The district also argued that Frontier School’s charter would not address the achievement gap the state cited as a reason for the law.

While Boone County has the largest achievement gap in the state, Frontier would operate within CPS, which has the state’s second-highest accreditation score at about 89%. Sturgeon, meanwhile, has the lowest accreditation score at about 60%, but a relatively small achievement gap.

Additionally, Boone County school districts range in population from 18,000 to 300 students, with some schools being staffed with out-of-county residents, calling into question the importance of a specific population.

CPS also argued that parent education and the presence of higher education should not be a factor in providing school choice options.

"It was somewhat offensive to say that only parents that are educated care about their own child's education; I think all parents care about their own child's education," Columbia Board of Education Vice President Suzette Waters said. "Mizzou is not a charter sponsor right now, so Frontier had to look to St. Louis for a sponsor; the arguments the state was trying to make that there's interest, somehow the presence of Mizzou is somehow a favorable for a charter, just didn't make sense."

CPS also argues the requirements are arbitrary because SB 727 only adds the population threshold to state law, not the additional higher education-related criteria or an achievement-gap threshold to target.

CPS adds that even if those criteria are considered, other counties meet them but were left out of the law. Greene County, for example, has a similar achievement gap of about 17%. However, it has around 300,000 people and hosts Missouri State University, which is not an R-1 doctoral research school like MU.

Phelps County also qualifies in all areas except in population. The county has around 45,000 people according to the U.S. Census and features the Missouri University of Science and Technology, which is an R-1.

Judge Emily Fretwell took arguments into consideration and set a deadline for optional post-hearing briefs for two weeks.