Henderson conditionally approves one charter school application, denies another

The Henderson City Council on Wednesday conditionally approved an application for a new city-sponsored charter school, but denied another school’s application.

Nexus Charter School, a new Nevada charter operator serving grades 6-12, received a tentative green light to open an east Henderson campus by the 2027-28 school year and is expected to educate as many as 570 students.

But the discussion preceding the denial of Signature Preparatory’s application for a second campus took center stage at the special council meeting as school leaders made passionate pleas to expand their K-8 footprint in Henderson. A city review team recommended denying the application for several reasons, including unsecured grant funding and unsubstantiated claims that there was demand for expansion.

“You have a once-in-a-decade opportunity sitting right in front of you,” said Gabe Shirey, Signature Preparatory’s founder and executive director, during the meeting’s public comment period. “A proven, thriving unicorn of a school ready to serve a thousand more Henderson students is asking for your vote.”

The at-times heated meeting had Henderson Mayor Michelle Romero asking for significant changes to how the city conducts its charter application review process.

“We know the existing school is a good school,” Romero said of Signature Preparatory. “Our process has put us in a position where, by the information given to the recommending team, they can’t make the determination that that would necessarily translate to a second facility.”

Proposal can be resubmitted within 30 days

Signature Preparatory’s proposal for an expansion campus was denied at the meeting, but can be resubmitted within 30 days for reconsideration at a future meeting. The school’s application said it aimed to serve up to 900 Henderson students.

Tara Phebus, education initiatives director for the city of Henderson, told the council that Signature Preparatory’s application approached, but did not meet, the standards set in all five of the city’s overarching required categories. Of the 25 subcategories, Signature Preparatory met the standard in eight.

Signature Preparatory’s model relied heavily on unsecured grant funding, and the plan for the school had financial discrepancies, lacked data to support claims of academic growth among certain student populations and had incomplete community engagement efforts, among other issues, Phebus said.

“Where the review team struggled in the discussion was around some of the inconsistencies and availability of information and evidence to support the claims that were included in the application,” Phebus told the council.

Signature Preparatory Principal Carey Roybal-Benson gave a near 30-minute rebuttal to the review team’s recommendation, saying, “Are there discrepancies that need to be fixed? Sure, yes. Do those deficiencies require denial of a charter? We respectfully believe that the answer is no.”

“I believe that the material concerns identified by staff can be addressed before Signature Preparatory: West even opens its doors,” added Roybal-Benson, who authored both the school’s 2026 application and its rejected 2025 application.

In his argument, Roybal-Benson pointed to Signature Preparatory’s track record of academic improvement and criticized the city’s charter application process.

He said his 2025 attempt for approval met 20 of the 25 subcategory requirements, but a similar 2026 application resulted in fewer standards being met. The city had changed its application criteria between the two years, Phebus told the council.

“I spent hundreds of hours on each of these applications,” Roybal-Benson said. “I didn’t simply copy and paste something that came from ‘25 into ‘26 because they said there’s a change in the application.”

Phebus said the staff’s recommendation was not a judgment of the current campus’ academic performance.

“What this review is saying is that the review team did not feel that they had sufficient evidence to recommend that it was ready to expand to an additional campus in this new environment in 2026,” Phebus said.

Phebus added after Roybal-Benson’s rebuttal that some of the information he presented to the council was not provided to the application review team.

After hearing Roybal-Benson’s argument, Councilmember Dan Stewart said it contained “a whole lot of questioning the answers rather than answering the questions.”

“Rather than rolling up their sleeves and working with you and your team, that’s the only conclusion I can come to that puts us in this position here,” Stewart told Phebus.

Other council members showed more sympathy for Signature Preparatory’s leaders, including Romero, who acknowledged what she saw as issues with the city’s application process.

“In the future, I think there are things that we can do that would avoid this situation and allow for maybe fixing some of these problems before we get to this point,” Romero said at the meeting.

Nexus gets conditional green light

Ahead of Signature Preparatory’s vote, the council conditionally approved Nexus Charter School’s application to open in east Henderson, though Nexus founder David Sabey said Wednesday that a campus location had not yet been secured.

Proponents of Nexus at the meeting touted plans for the school’s project-based learning curriculum and a competency-based grading model as educational innovations.

Before it can open, the council mandated that Nexus must show proof that a federal grant has been awarded, submit a revised financial plan through fiscal year 2033, obtain Nevada Department of Education approval for its competency-based education program and submit its final competency-based education plan.

Nexus will also present its application to the State Public Charter School Authority on Thursday and, if approved, must inform staff who they will choose as their charter sponsor.

“This is the school I hope my children will attend,” Sabey said. “That has fundamentally shaped the design of the school. At every step, we’ve asked, ‘What kind of school would I like for my children?’”

If the conditions are met, Nexus will become Henderson’s second city-sponsored charter school since a 2023 Nevada law granted municipalities the power to authorize charters. The first, Kesher Academy, opened this month as a K-2 school with a Hebrew language immersion program.

Stewart said he is excited to see Nexus offer a competency-based grading model inside a secondary school. The model evaluates students on skill and knowledge mastery, rather than through letter grades.

“I don’t want to call it an experiment, but I think with the conditions that the staff have set forth, I think there’s enough guardrails around this that we can see if this really is going to work,” Stewart said.