Minneapolis charter school seeks new home in dispute over broken bathrooms, unpaid rent to church

Leaking ceilings. Exposed and tangled wires. Multiple reeking — and unusable — bathrooms.

Those are the complaints at the heart of a dispute that has pushed Legacy of Dr. Josie R. Johnson Montessori School out of its home at Our Lady of Victory Church in north Minneapolis.

Church leaders moved to evict the school earlier this summer, citing a failure to pay rent. But school leaders say the church balked at providing the necessary paperwork for the school to apply for state funding. And both sides point to ongoing disagreements about who was responsible for critical repairs, including toilets that don't flush, or in one case, flush constantly. By the end of the school year, school staff said only one bathroom was usable.

"That's just unjust for these kids," said Tonicia Abdur Salaam, the head of the school.

The North Side school's dilemma is one that can befall charter schools that struggle to find and keep adequate space. Restrictions and rising leasing costs can limit charters' ability to find a fitting building for a school, said Eugene Piccolo, executive director of the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools. Charters end up leasing old Catholic school buildings, spaces in strip malls and making do in repurposed industrial spaces.

In this case, it's not just the school left scrambling. Without the rental income from the school, parish leaders say Our Lady of Victory is insolvent and, absent a new tenant, will have to suspend operations on Sept. 1.

"While the parish has not received rental payments for more than a year, we have worked with school leadership to address some building maintenance issues and have made repairs to provide a safe place for children to learn and grow to their fullest potential," read a statement written earlier this month by the Rev. Michael Tix, the church's parochial administrator. A statement issued July 25 said the school and church had "continued misunderstandings about who was responsible for what" repairs.

"The building started to become inhabitable, but this didn't happen overnight," said Abdur Salaam. "It seems they would rather close the parish than work in partnership with us."

Available space for a school

The church first leased space to Bright Water Montessori in 2012; in 2020, that school became the Legacy of Dr. Josie R. Johnson Montessori School, or JJ Legacy for short. The tuition-based preschool and K-6 charter school served about 140 students last school year.

The lease for fiscal year 2023 was $175,000; the school requested more than $150,000 in charter school lease aid from the state Department of Education. That money can be used by charter schools for a large portion of the cost to rent a building because charter schools in Minnesota are not allowed to issue bonds or levy taxes to pay for building space.

"Some schools are in inadequate space because that was the only space available and that met the requirements," Piccolo said, adding that the landlords don't always maintain the space. "It's often not clear in the lease about who is responsible for what."

That's why Piccolo said it's important for charter school boards — often made up of teachers, parents and community members — to involve a real estate attorney who can draft and help monitor the agreements included in the lease.

If the terms of a lease aren't agreed upon, as in the case of JJ Legacy and Our Lady of Victory, that can stall the lease aid needed to keep up on rent payments, Piccolo said.

"Then it just snowballs," he said.

Campus with a history

The North Side church has housed a school for more than six decades.

Records show that the Sisters of St. Benedict of Duluth opened the school at what is now Our Lady of Victory in 1948. The Catholic school operated until 1990 when Our Lady of Victory and St. Austin schools were consolidated to form the St. Elizabeth Seton School, located at 5140 Fremont.

In 1995, the parish schools of St. Anne, St. Bridget and St. Margaret Mary in Golden Valley joined this consolidated school. Still, the St. Elizabeth Seton School closed in 2009 and the building was leased to Bright Water Montessori in 2012.

Bisola Wald, a JJ Legacy parent, said seeing the school have to fight for basic maintenance and now have to find a new location is demoralizing to the small community of parents and students.

She chose the school for its values and diversity, which she felt was a unique and critical offering.

"It feels like a punishment to have my child in a school building that is failing and to leave school leaders with no choice but to try to maintain a harmful partnership just to keep the school going," Wald said.

School leaders and staff from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have been meeting to come to an agreement about the amount of rent that is due. Tix said in a statement that he was "grateful" for the recent "positive dialogue" about remaining rental payments.

Church leaders have given the school until mid-August to clean out their materials — some of which the head of school says have been damaged by unaddressed water leaks.

Abdur Salaam said the school is hopeful that they have found another North Side location to move into for fall. Still, she's determined to keep pushing for a fair agreement with the church, which she said offers an important lesson for her students:

"We are teaching children that is important to use their voices, and their voices are powerful," she said. "I have an obligation to model what that looks like when there is injustice."