Editorial Opinion: How to Get 1,000 Students in Your Twin Cities Charter School
By Don Allen - Journal of A Black Teacher
Let’s be honest: starting a new charter school in the Twin Cities should not be a Herculean task, especially when the public schools are doing most of the recruitment work for you. Want 1,000 students in your brand-new charter school? Here’s your blueprint: serve children, teach them to read, show up with structure, and maybe, just maybe, don’t treat families like they're lucky just to be in the building.
The truth is, public schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul have stumbled into a crisis of confidence, and it's not just about underfunding or teacher burnout. It's about the chronic inability to meet the basic academic needs of Black, Brown, and low-income students. Parents aren’t blind. They see the chaos. They feel the disrespect. They notice that Johnny is still reading at a second-grade level in seventh grade. And when public schools send home grade reports that look like participation trophies, families know what time it is: it’s time to leave.
Charter schools? They’re not perfect. But if you want to launch one that earns community trust, start with the opposite of what the big public districts are doing. Begin with literacy, and I don’t mean just passing out books during Black History Month. I mean phonics, comprehension, fluency, and real-time data-driven reading instruction with teachers who know the difference between a struggle and a disservice. Hire staff who don’t see every discipline issue as a personal affront and who don’t need a workshop to understand that poverty is not pathology.
Next: Make your school feel like something parents can believe in. Have an open door, not a brick wall. Communicate in the languages families actually speak. Stop treating culturally relevant curriculum like it’s a special elective. Bring in grandparents, barbers, pastors, and activists, people who live in the neighborhood and can tell when your school is just copying and pasting last year’s DEI slideshow.
Oh, and here's a spicy one: demand excellence. Not test score gimmicks, but authentic rigor. Let kids be taught by brilliant Black and Brown teachers who weren’t run out by hostile staff meetings or ignored by administrators who only talk about equity when it’s time to write a grant (most of whom cannot define ‘equity’).
You want 1,000 students? Be the school that calls parents before there's a problem. Be the school that lets young scholars code, dance, write, and question the world around them. Be the school where uniforms aren’t just clothing, but a symbol of unity. Be the school where you walk through the hallways and hear learning, not yelling, not chaos, and not excuses.
The best part? You don’t even have to do marketing. The public schools will do it for you. Every time a student walks into a classroom with a long-term sub who doesn’t know their name, or a math teacher who’s given up by Thanksgiving, you’ve gained a future scholar. Every time a parent’s voicemail goes unanswered for three weeks, you’ve got another application. Every time a school board meeting descends into political theater, your enrollment list grows longer.
In a region where too many schools are failing to educate and inspire, all it takes to get 1,000 students is a clear mission, competent leadership, and a refusal to treat education like a charity. The demand is there. The question isn’t if families will leave public schools—it’s where they’ll go when they do.
So, build your school. Open your doors. Be bold. Be unapologetic. And be ready to welcome 1,000 children whose futures depend on something radically simple: a school that does its job.
Let’s be honest: starting a new charter school in the Twin Cities should not be a Herculean task, especially when the public schools are doing most of the recruitment work for you. Want 1,000 students in your brand-new charter school? Here’s your blueprint: serve children, teach them to read, show up with structure, and maybe, just maybe, don’t treat families like they're lucky just to be in the building.
The truth is, public schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul have stumbled into a crisis of confidence, and it's not just about underfunding or teacher burnout. It's about the chronic inability to meet the basic academic needs of Black, Brown, and low-income students. Parents aren’t blind. They see the chaos. They feel the disrespect. They notice that Johnny is still reading at a second-grade level in seventh grade. And when public schools send home grade reports that look like participation trophies, families know what time it is: it’s time to leave.
Charter schools? They’re not perfect. But if you want to launch one that earns community trust, start with the opposite of what the big public districts are doing. Begin with literacy, and I don’t mean just passing out books during Black History Month. I mean phonics, comprehension, fluency, and real-time data-driven reading instruction with teachers who know the difference between a struggle and a disservice. Hire staff who don’t see every discipline issue as a personal affront and who don’t need a workshop to understand that poverty is not pathology.
Next: Make your school feel like something parents can believe in. Have an open door, not a brick wall. Communicate in the languages families actually speak. Stop treating culturally relevant curriculum like it’s a special elective. Bring in grandparents, barbers, pastors, and activists, people who live in the neighborhood and can tell when your school is just copying and pasting last year’s DEI slideshow.
Oh, and here's a spicy one: demand excellence. Not test score gimmicks, but authentic rigor. Let kids be taught by brilliant Black and Brown teachers who weren’t run out by hostile staff meetings or ignored by administrators who only talk about equity when it’s time to write a grant (most of whom cannot define ‘equity’).
You want 1,000 students? Be the school that calls parents before there's a problem. Be the school that lets young scholars code, dance, write, and question the world around them. Be the school where uniforms aren’t just clothing, but a symbol of unity. Be the school where you walk through the hallways and hear learning, not yelling, not chaos, and not excuses.
The best part? You don’t even have to do marketing. The public schools will do it for you. Every time a student walks into a classroom with a long-term sub who doesn’t know their name, or a math teacher who’s given up by Thanksgiving, you’ve gained a future scholar. Every time a parent’s voicemail goes unanswered for three weeks, you’ve got another application. Every time a school board meeting descends into political theater, your enrollment list grows longer.
In a region where too many schools are failing to educate and inspire, all it takes to get 1,000 students is a clear mission, competent leadership, and a refusal to treat education like a charity. The demand is there. The question isn’t if families will leave public schools—it’s where they’ll go when they do.
So, build your school. Open your doors. Be bold. Be unapologetic. And be ready to welcome 1,000 children whose futures depend on something radically simple: a school that does its job.
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