Kansas City Don Bosco Charter to close

Mara Rose Williams:

A second Kansas City charter school today announced it will close at the end of this school year.
Don Bosco Charter High School is shuttering its doors for good after operating more than a decade as a school for students at risk of dropping out.
School officials said this morning that because of poor student attendance they were unable to generate the revenue needed to continue operating the high school. State funding for public schools is based on a formula heavily weighted by the average student daily attendance.
But school leaders were quick to defend their students.
“It would be very easy to blame students, but I don’t want to do that,” said Al Dimmitt, chairman of the Don Bosco Charter High School Board of Directors. “We are dealing with a student population faced with a lot of challenges in life and attendance in school does not always arise to their top priority,”