Students enter Kairos Academies in St. Louis at the start of the school day on Feb. 25, 2022.
ST. LOUIS — Kairos Academies charter school will lay off seven staff members after enrollment numbers failed to meet the target.
“Our mission to build a community of self-directed learners, leaders, and citizens remains at the heart of everything we do, and these adjustments position us to fulfill that mission with greater clarity and strength,” reads a letter to staff sent Friday from Khalil Graham, the school’s executive director.
Kairos has about 500 students this year compared to a of 780 students in fifth through 11th grades.
Two of the seven eliminated positions were classroom teachers. Class sizes will stay between 20 to 24 students, school leaders said.
With the addition of a senior class next year, enrollment was once expected to top out at 910. Now, Kairos is planning on 600 total students and the staffing model was “in need of adjustments to better align with our current reality,” reads the letter.
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“Change is never easy, but it is often necessary to grow stronger. As a team, we have always risen to meet challenges with resilience and purpose, and I know we will do so again,” Graham wrote.
Kairos Academies is proposing to redevelop the Alligator Oil Clothing Cos. complex in Bevo Mill into its high school as seen in this digital rendering. (Courtesy of Kairos Academies)
Kairos opened in 2019 and was co-founded by Jack Krewson, son of former Mayor Lyda Krewson. The school’s board awarded Graham a $20,000 performance bonus in September.
Layoffs are rare in public schools, which run on tax revenue linked to student attendance. But near-universal declines in enrollment have school leaders mulling budget cuts including building closures in Riverview Gardens School District and Momentum Academy charters in St. Louis.
The city has lost about 40% of its childhood population since 2000, driven primarily by Black families moving out. Enrollment in St. Louis charters has stalled at around 11,500 students, as new schools are opened and others closed each year.
Kairos did not release the amount of savings from the layoffs, but said the funds will be used to increase special education services, according to a statement from spokesman Stuart Murray.
“Kairos routinely evaluates a number of data points and makes adjustments in order to best support our students,” Murray said.
One of the staff members said they received two weeks’ notice and no severance payment.
Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run by appointed nonprofit boards. Under state law they are allowed to open in St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia along with underperforming school districts like Normandy and Riverview Gardens.
Kairos and its sponsor, the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, have not posted the school’s annual budget. Meeting minutes show signs of stress, including last April and a current deficit in the .
The school leases space in the Concordia Publishing House in the Marine Villa neighborhood and secured $4.5 million in federal tax credits toward a new building in Bevo Mill. Kairos also received a $2 million federal grant this year for expanding charter schools.
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