The Alabama Public Charter School Commission (APCSC) Monday denied a charter school’s application for a new campus in Birmingham for a second time.
The Alabama Aerospace and Aviation High School (AAHS) opened in Bessemer in 2022. The school’s founder, Ruben Morris, previously applied to have the commission approve a new location in May and was denied.
AAHS is open to students in 9th through 12th grade interested in aviation, aerospace and other STEM pathways. The school graduated their first class of 13 students including three student pilots and four mechanics. AAHS ended the previous school year with 146 students enrolled.
Morris told commissioners Monday that he planned to open a new AAHS location at the Birmingham Southern College campus and collaborate with Miles College to increase academic rigor and talked about expanding coursework to include artificial intelligence.
“We’ll utilize an already existing dual enrollment agreement to act as a key catalyst expanding access to advanced computer science education for students,” Morris said.
Morris told the APCSC he had over 80 families interested in a Birmingham location. But commissioners were concerned he wouldn’t have enough enrollment for a new campus. The commission said the Bessemer location failed to meet the projected enrollment of 365 students.
“The big elephant in the room is if you fail to meet enrollment when you first opened, and you’ve just said more than once that you have 80-plus students ready, 80-plus students is a long way from 145, 165, or even 365 [students],” Sharon Porterfield, a member of the commission, said.
Morris said the Bessemer school is not allowed to use the upstairs portion of the building in which it operates and is not allowed to place portable classrooms on the property.
Commissioners also said they were worried about the retention of students at AAHS due to the school starting the year with about 170 to 200 students and ending with fewer than that.
Morris told commissioners student retention at the Bessemer campus could be low in part because some students leave once they aren’t selected to be a student to fly planes and receive a private pilot license, while others choose to leave because they don’t fit the culture of the school.
But commissioners from the APCSC still remained concerned about enrollment rates and worried about how a new campus would affect the enrollment at the Bessemer location.
“I worry a bit that opening one school, at least at this point, before you build enrollment, up at that Bessemer campus and get to capacity and have waiting lists. That it could actually hurt that Bessemer campus in enrollment, and in growth and strength,” Commissioner Cynthia McCarthy said.
Birmingham City Schools also urged for the denial of the charter school due to a lack of success in major areas.
“Your original ruling was based on well-documented deficiencies across all major areas,” Cedric Tatum, a representative for Birmingham City Schools said. “Including the educational plan, the operational plan and financial plan. And also based on the data that was available at the time.”
Tatum said there was also no demand from the community for AAHS in Birmingham and students in the area did not show they were ready to attend the school.
“No parents or community members attended the public hearings that we provided, and there was no indication that there were any students that were ready to actually attend this school in Birmingham City,” he said.
AAHS will have their first day of school in Bessemer for the 2025-2026 school year on Aug. 18.