Out of money, Mastery School scrambles to see another school year
Gloria Howard, whose grandson attends Mastery School, dresses down the school board for waiting to alert parents to the school’s possible closure. Photo by David Pierini
By David Pierini Staff Reporter
Parents for a North Minneapolis charter school say they were caught off guard when they found out the school was out of money and its board was prepared to vote on its closure.
Anxious and outraged, parents and faculty managed to press the Mastery School’s governing board at a Feb. 13 meeting to postpone the vote until April in hopes the school of 216 students can find a way to keep its doors open for the next school year.
“I think parents and staff need information before you talk about closing the school,” Imogene Kohler told the board. “It seems like no one communicated with the parents or staff and then all of a sudden you call a meeting to talk about closing the school? Some heads need to roll because of this.”
Mastery School was part of the Harvest Network of Schools, a charter group, until 2018 when HNS dissolved. The restructuring merged two Harvest schools and recast Mastery as an independent charter with its own board of directors.
Almost immediately, there were red flags with the school’s solvency. Mastery was saddled with a ballooning lease on its building at 4021 Thomas Ave. N that had been negotiated by HNS. The lease was based on a projected enrollment HNS believed would eventually exceed 400 students, said Emily Peterson, Mastery’s interim executive director.
Rent, according to the lease, is on a schedule to increase by $200,000 annually over the next two years.
Peterson offered some hope. She said the school is in talks with the building’s landlord to stop the scheduled increase in rent for one year. She also offered various scenarios that would be contingent on a continued line of credit and some staff cuts. Parents and board members also seemed eager to intensify efforts to recruit more students.
But those in attendance at the board meeting remained baffled by late-hour notice of the financial troubles.
Pillsbury United Communities, the school’s authorizer, sent several letters to the school pointing out the need to address the looming cash problem and other strategic challenges, said Antonio Cardona, director of PUC’s Office of Public Charter Schools. PUC also owns and independently operates North News.
“We’ve been raising flags for more than a year and there hasn’t been a sense of urgency,” Cardona said when called on by a parent to explain PUC’s knowledge of the problem. “We sent letters to the board looking for significant action. There is also a level of responsibility at the feet of HNS.”
Board members appeared stunned by the anger in the room. Nearly half the board is new and Peterson, the interim executive director, started at Mastery in July.
“The outlook for the school financially is not that great,” Terrence Price, the interim board chair, told the parents and faculty. “Nobody on this board, I can assure you, wants to see the school close.”
It was little comfort to angry parents, who said they wanted to be part of the solution.
Dr. Ora Hokes, whose background includes helping to start a charter school, said parents invest their children and hearts in the school and would be willing partners in finding ways to keep the school open.
“This is a slap in the face,” she said. “We’ve supported you and you support us by not communicating? To hear it like this, you are going to have to rebuild the faith we had in you.
“I’m discouraged. Tell us what to do,” she added.
A vote to not close the school failed because some members abstained after hearing a proposal from board member Lesa Clarkson to table a vote until April. The motion to postpone passed unanimously.
Clarkson wanted to give Peterson more time to negotiate with the landlord and pull together members of the community to drum up ideas for the school to remain open.
On one occasion, attendees had to separate a parent and staff member during a heated argument.
Clarkson said no one in the room should be “thrown under the bus,” to which one parent yelled, “Don’t portray yourself as some sort of victim here.”
“We’re here to work through a difficult situation,” Clarkson said. “Nobody has run away. We’re all here to solve the problem. The question is how do we do it?”