Mississippi’s first hybrid-model charter school, offering online and in-person instruction, is preparing to accept students in August 2026. The school held its public hearing on Dec. 23, 2025, and will begin holding parent-interest meetings in early January.
The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board approved Archway Charter School to open in Humphreys County in October 2024. The new school will serve students in grades 7 through 12, feature self-paced online learning, and be accessible to students across the Delta.
“You have more autonomy to do things, and I think the charters are innovating, but the way that we’re going to innovate is by pulling a massive lever instead of just tweaking some things,” Archway Founder David Herndon told the Mississippi Free Press on Dec 13. 2024, “… We’re going to just completely rethink the way that we view traditional education.”
The school will hold its in-person classes at Upper Room Fellowship Ministries in Belzoni, Miss. The former teacher and administrator chose the location in part because of the strong support of the church’s pastor. Herndon said the Delta is the best location for this type of model because of the large number of schools in the region with low scores on the Mississippi School Accountability Rating system.
Offering options to one of the state’s poorest regions
The Humphreys County School District earned a D rating in the 2022-2023 school year. The district increased its rating to a C for the 2023-2024 school year but dropped back to a D for the 2024-2025 school year. School districts neighboring Humphreys County show varying stages of academic performance. The South Delta and Yazoo County school districts hold C ratings. The Hollandale and Leland School Districts hold a B rating and the Yazoo City School District holds an F rating.
“You look across the state, and there really is a lot of disparity in terms of options for kids,” Herndon said. “… I’m a firm believer in public schools. Charters are public schools.”
Although the school will hold its classes in a church building, Herndon said it will have no religious affiliation nor will it teach religion.
“We’re not religiously affiliated at all,” Herndon told the Mississippi Free Press on Dec 19, 2024. “We’re completely secular, which, of course, is a requirement of the law for charter schools. There will be no overlap between the church and the school in terms of governance or leadership. (There is) zero affiliation other than a space.”
Archway’s hybrid class rotation will consist of three weeks of online instruction. During every fourth week, the school will hold classes virtually on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and on campus on Thursday and Friday. Those days will be dedicated to formal assessments, labs, presentations and group assignments.
Earlier this fall, the school fielded questions about meeting its financial obligations. Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board President Lisa Karmacharya told Mississippi Today in October that the school did “not have any funds available for operations.” However, Herndon told the Mississippi Free Fress that the school has secured a grant.
“Archway recently was awarded the CSP grant ($1.5 million over 5 years). CSP is a federal grant administered by Mississippi First,” Herndon told the Mississippi Free Press on Dec. 12.
The Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board said in an Oct 31, 2024, press release approving the model reflects the board’s “commitment to fostering innovative educational practices that can better serve the diverse needs of Mississippi’s children.”
“This will not be a one-size-fits-all, and that’s the beauty of the charter model in general,”
Karmacharya told the Mississippi Free Press on Dec. 17, 2024. “You can be innovative, and you can do things differently for, one, those families that want that model and, two, the children that really can thrive in that particular situation.”
‘I think (teachers) are going to be really attracted to teaching at our school.’
Herndon, a professor at Delta State University, said the model is also designed to ensure students have access to high-quality teachers. The Mississippi Delta has traditionally struggled to attract and retain educators. With teachers required to be on campus only two days a month, Herndon believes he can recruit and hire instructors from across the state.
“I think they’re going to be really attracted to teaching at our school,” Herndon said. “We want to kind of level the playing field and bring resources into an area that is underserved instead of trying to drain what they already have.”
The model also includes plans for virtual reality courses and experiences. Teachers can use VR goggles for virtual field trips, vocational courses and labs. The school plans to partner with Dream Innovations in Yazoo City for trade certification trainings using virtual reality.
“When you’re in an isolated spot like the Delta, there are not very many options for vo-tech, Herndon said. “(With virtual reality) we can bring the vo-tech to the home in three dimensions and get them trained in a trade where they are a marketable citizen once they graduate from high school.”
The board approved the charter school against the recommendation of the independent evaluation committee. The final report included concerns about the school’s plan to meet the academic needs of the students in the Mississippi Delta, including special education and English-language learning populations.
“The heavy reliance on self-paced online learning may not be the most effective approach for students in impoverished rural areas, and there is no research provided to support the success of this model in such communities,” the review states. “Concerns are raised about the lack of student access to counselors, which could exacerbate feelings of isolation in a predominantly online learning environment, and the absence of specific strategies to address high dropout rates in online programs.”
The review, completed by an independent reviewer, specifically said the application did not meet the standards in the areas of special populations and at-risk students, curriculum and instructional design, and supplemental programming.
“The educational program and capacity of Archway Charter School exhibit several strengths but also significant areas of concern exist throughout the application,” the reviewers said in their summary.
Unlike many of the other charter schools that have requested approval, Archway did not bring a crowd of supporters to the meeting. The application included both letters of support and dissent. Karmacharya said ultimately the board believed the benefits outweighed the evaluators’ concerns.
“I don’t want to speak for the board or to put words in their mouth,” Karmacharya told the Mississippi Free Press on Dec. 17, 2024. “I feel like the majority of board members felt like (Herndon) had answered those questions that maybe the external evaluator was not comfortable with. Where they felt like there wasn’t a satisfactory answer, the board felt like there was and the board certainly has that prerogative to make a decision one way or the other in response to an application for a new school.”
Herndon said the board saw past the committee’s hesitations to embrace a new approach to education in the state.
“We have to rethink the traditional schooling where a child sits in a classroom at a desk for seven hours a day,” Herndon said. “It works for some kids, but I think it doesn’t work for a lot of students.”
Jaylin R. Smith contributed to this story.