Florissant closed Gateway Legacy Christian Academy

By Red Latina Writing FLORISSANT, Mo. –

Parents at Gateway Legacy Christian Academy, a private school in Florissant, are frustrated and worried about their children’s educational futures due to the school’s closure. Florissant closed the school, accusing it of not following safety codes and putting the lives of students at risk.

Students have been out of school since December 2022, when the owners attempted to comply with all Florissant and Fire Protection District requirements to reopen. The new owners moved into the campus last August, which used to be operated by another school. Students complain about the avalanche of homework and papers left by all the teachers to keep them busy and they cannot have an adequate balance to carry out their sports activities.

Female students feel discriminated against for not being able to stay in hotels or camps like their male peers and have to live in the homes of teachers, coaches, friends, or families who welcomed them, where they must pay some of them for their stay and their food, which raises the cost of living, not to mention that tuition has not decreased.

Parents of the students at the private school are outraged and have shared their frustration with local media. “I feel bad for the children because they have no control

over the situation. The city should be more concerned about the safety of the children,” said a mother of a student.

They state that they have lost all credibility of the school, due to the constant change of dates to have the dormitories and study rooms. Damages from the parents of international students, extra costs in-flight changes, and the school have not responded for the things that were affected by breaking water pipes and losses of student property; the school hides behind the city for not giving the permits for the opening of the school, the parents comment that the insurance policy should absorb all these expenses and the school does not give a reason for this.

Other parents commented that their children are adrift, especially international students who represent at least 80% of the school and do not have the possibility of returning to their countries of origin only until the dates contemplated in the school schedule, they consider that the school has not taken material losses into account, and there was not a good accompaniment in this family-school process.

In addition, the process of learning, socialization, and others of their children is left halfway, since virtuality does not guarantee the required accompaniment, leading young people to self-taught their learning if they want to obtain a good score in the exams.

In addition, tuition costs remain the same without considering the additional expenses of the host families of many students to financially support the young people in this time of contingency.

In addition to working twice as much preparing materials for virtual classes, preparing and grading assignments during virtual class schedules, developing assignments to perform tasks outside of school hours, answering a huge number of text messages from both students and school coordination.

The school has tried to have face-to-face classes in various locations, the constant change of locations for classes is frustrating, sometimes in Illinois where the Church owned by the school is located in Ponton Beach, others in the school cafeteria in Florissant at 23 miles apart, where some teachers have to drive between locations to teach various classes.

For her part, the school’s owner, Melissa Morrison, has expressed her despair. “We had our final inspections just before Labor Day weekend, and that inspection did not go as planned. The inspector was not ready to stay on campus while these buildings needed someone to stay on campus to inspect them and would return the following week. Yes, we have been out of school. We have been completely away from school since December; we never came back from Christmas vacation,” she stated. On the subject of the insurance policy, they are fighting with the insurer that does not want to be responsible for the expenses for the damages.

Florissant Mayor Timothy Lowery dismissed criticism from the student’s parents, arguing that they have been working in partnership with the school to get students back to classrooms as soon as possible, but that the buildings do not meet the standards. security codes necessary to ensure the protection of students.

Given this situation, the city allowed the school to occupy one of the campus buildings, which meets the corresponding security requirements, while the other buildings remain closed until the corresponding inspections are carried out.

In this context, Morrison is optimistic about the future and is committed to collaborating with the authorities to guarantee the safety of its students and to be able to return to normality as soon as possible.

The outlook for this school term for GLCA students appears to remain uncertain.