Tennessee’s first Montessori public charter school is expanding its personalized learning approach to more students in the Frayser community of Memphis.
Monday the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission granted the Libertas School of Memphis’s application to add grades six through eight to its existing Pre-K-5 campus, along with 148 more seats.
“We are thrilled that the TN Public Charter School Commission has unanimously approved our charter amendment to serve middle school grades beginning in 2024,” said Libertas school leaders in a letter to parents following approval. “I thank our Board of Trustees for their guidance as we have carefully developed this vision over the last several years, and applaud our teachers and staff for crafting the plan.”
The school is one of 16 public charter schools state commissioners oversea, and Libertas leaders say the expansion fills a void traditional public schools in Frayser aren’t filling.
Under the proposed expansion, the school will add one grade per year over a three-year period until the school reaches the full enrollment capacity of 675 students. The plan also includes increasing the current maximum enrollment threshold in all grade levels from 388 students to accommodate the more than 100 students that are waitlisted.
The plan to expand the school began in 2019 as a response to the growing need for more middle school seats in the Frayser community.
“Our neighborhood of Frayser needs more quality seats, especially at the middle grades, according to the most recent “seat analysis” from Memphis Shelby County Schools (2019). Though the neighborhood on the surface has excess capacity (existing 6-8 schools are enrolled at 77 percent of capacity – 3,011 of 3,914 seats), a huge portion of those empty seats are because families are opting-out of poor performing neighborhood schools,” wrote Libertas School leaders in their application. “As a result of these limited options, our families must stretch to find options.”
School leaders wrote in their application that they’ve identified a few options for the expansion which include a new site, an additional phase added onto the existing building if the new site isn’t available, or the plans to work with a community partner organization that has an unused education building.
Monday’s approval followed a positive recommendation last week by the commission’s School Performance and Accountability Committee.
At that meeting, Commissioner Terence Patterson was among those expressing support for the expansion, saying the school’s innovative Montessori model is having a positive impact on the Frayser community.
“I think for me this application, or this amendment petition, it really reminds me of how strong the school has been doing,” said Terrence. “They continue to outperform neighborhood peers, they’ve seen TVAAS 5 growth three years in a row. I think the other thing in the application that reminds me of the importance of community and community support. I think I saw letters from a Shelby County commissioner, a Memphis-Shelby County school board member, a local pastor who is very active in the community, the Frayser Exchange Club; so, it highlights—I think—the impact the school has had on this community.”
Libertas School of Memphis was originally a turnaround school in the state-run Achievement School District (ASD)—an intervention that serves the lowest-achieving schools across the state—before receiving approval to operate under the commission. The school currently serves a high number of economically disadvantaged and special needs students.
The Montessori Method is designed to foster rigorous, self-motivated growth for children and adolescents in all areas of their development—cognitive, emotional, social, and physical.
