Confluence Academies is hoping to welcome back nearly 2,500 students for the first day of school after about 900 students were impacted by the May 16 tornado.
The charter school system’s leadership worked throughout the summer to identify families living in the direct path of the EF3 tornado.
Staff members opened resource hubs and went door knocking when they weren’t able to connect with a parent or guardian of a student, said Leslie Muhammad, director of student support services.
“With the storm happening two weeks before school ended, a lot of our families were displaced,” Muhammad said. “Some living in their front yard, others living in their homes, until, obviously, the city came to condemn them.” The storm hit as graduation for one of the high schools was underway.
Confluence Academies Chief Operating Officer Candice Carter-Oliver said she knew something was wrong when the valedictorian ran late for the ceremony.
“It wasn't until after [the graduation], like, oh my, this is bigger than we thought,” Carter-Oliver said. “Through that evening, weekend and those days to come thereafter, [is when] we really. started to see the evidence of the devastation.”
Confluence Academies’ students live all across the city and are often transported in buses and cabs to school.
After the storm, Muhammad said she and other staff members pulled ZIP codes of students and compared them against the path of the storm. They then began doing outreach and eventually going door to door.
Some Confluence staff members were also impacted by the storm, according to Carter-Oliver, so they were provided with social and emotional support and professional development as they prepared to welcome back students.
Carter-Oliver, a St. Louis native herself, said it was important for her and the staff to visit families and “meet them where they were.” She remembered meeting a mother with two sons enrolled in Confluence.
“She said, ‘I’m not sure what we’re going to do,'” Carter-Oliver said. “I said, ‘You’re in the right place because you’ve got caring people around, and we’re going to make sure that you all have a place to go.’”
Carter-Oliver and Muhammad both credit the staff’s ability to pivot quickly to support students because of the preexisting systems to support homeless students.
According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, there were over 3,000 homeless students in St. Louis during the 2022-23 school year.
There were 160 to 170 unhoused students attending Confluence last school year.
Muhammad said she’s aware of at least 67 students who will require transportation provided under the McKinney-Vento Act, which includes protections for homeless students.
She said she expects that number to grow.
For the first time this school year, Confluence Academies has partnered with other charter schools in the city to combine some bus routes for homeless students to help streamline transportation.
School officials across the city will be monitoring attendance closely during the first week of school, as it’s unclear how many school-age children were directly impacted by the storm.
Carter-Oliver said that over 95% of students had indicated that they would return for the 2025-26 school year prior to the tornado.
It’s normal to see some variance in enrollment and attendance at the start of the school year, but Carter-Oliver acknowledged there’s a certain level of uncertainty after the tornado.
Carter-Oliver and Muhammad have said the tornado gave them an opportunity to not only show up for their students, but also their communities after the storm.
Carter-Oliver said it even inspired some parents to enroll their children in their schools.
“The role of a school in a community is huge,” Muhammad said. “In the four walls of a building, you'll hear a teacher say, ‘I'm now a teacher, I'm a mom, I'm a dad, I'm an aunt, I'm a grandmother, I'm a grandfather, I am a social worker, I am a school counselor.’ The community really utilizes the educational support as truly their support.”
