One entity’s hopes of starting a public charter school in Tallahatchie County have been dashed.
The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, which had been considering five finalists for possible startup of new charter schools in the state as early as fall 2023, on Monday voted to approve only one charter school application and to reject four others.
Among those rejected was the application of Resilience Academy of Teaching Excellence-East Tallahatchie, which would have operated within the boundaries of the East Tallahatchie School District.
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Resilience Development Corporation, a company with both Mississippi and Tennessee ties, this year had submitted an 874-page package featuring an application and proposal with supporting documents to the board, seeking approval to operate two new charter schools, including East Tallahatchie.
The other, also rejected, was Resilience Academy of Teaching Excellence-North Bolivar, which would have been located within the North Bolivar Consolidated School District.
The proposal called for both schools, which would have opened as soon as fall 2023, to serve students from kindergarten through the fifth grade and to start out with up to 80 students while expanding over a few years to a potential maximum enrollment of 360.
Ten charter school applications were submitted in all, and in mid-July, the Authorizer Board ruled that the credentials and proposals of five of the applicants, including Resilience, were “adequate” and voted to allow them to advance to the third stage of the process.
During that August review by a team of independent evaluators charged with reviewing the list of finalists and offering recommendations to the board, the Resilience proposals were among four that were not recommended for final interview consideration.
According to review documents, the evaluators judged that Resilience failed to meet performance standards in eight of 23 rating areas — encompassing educational program design and capacity, operations plan and capacity and financial plan and capacity — and only partially met the standards in 10 other areas.
On Monday, the board was unanimous in their denial of Resilience, saying the plans were not thorough enough.
Clarksdale Collegiate Prep's expansion and Columbus Leadership Academy also were rejected.
Of the five schools that made it to the final stage of the application process, Instant Impact Global Prep, which would serve grades K-2 in Natchez beginning in the 2023-24 school year, was the only one recommended for approval and, in the end, the only one chosen for approval.
Another application process period will begin in spring 2023.
