Charter school gets massive classroom overhaul

Before Kristen Muenster went on The Kelly Clarkson Show for the unveil of her revamped classroom, it was a two-year process to make the dream a reality.

During that time frame, Muenster, who has worked as intervention specialist at the Academy for Urban Scholars in east Columbus for 10 years, wrote as many as four times to Brittany Jeltema, a national classroom flipper, with a request to redesign her resource room.

The hard work eventually paid off.

“When I was looking through applications to choose the most deserving teacher and group of students for the classroom makeover, Kristen really stood out,” Jeltema says. “It was clear through her writing that she was an extremely dedicated teacher who goes above and beyond for her students.”

The resource room Jeltema flipped is for special education students. Muenster wanted it to have flexible seating that allows students to work in groups or independently.

“I just wanted it to feel special,” Muenster says.

At the beginning of the new semester in January, she told staff that her biggest goal was to get the academy’s story out to the public. A week later, she received an email from Jeltema.

Events unfolded quickly in February. Muenster and school founders were interviewed by Kelly Clarkson Show producers multiple times. Multiple packages for the project were sent to the school and, while the redesign was under way, nobody looked, Muenster says.

Following its completion, Muenster and colleagues flew out to Los Angeles for the show.

A scheduled family vacation meant Muenster had to wait a little longer to see the new classroom in person.

“All I thought about was getting back to the school,” she says.

In addition to flexible seating, the classroom features a quote from the late NelsonMandela, a green velvet couch and local artwork donated to the school.

“It was just breathtaking,” Muenster says.

The room became a point of pride for students. The students are different when they come into the room to get work done.

“And then the pandemic hit,” she adds. “It was really sad. ... We got to enjoy it for a month.”

Now in her 15th year of teaching, Muenster has become the director of curriculum and instruction at the academy. She connected with the academy by a random chance encounter after moving from Cleveland to Columbus.

On a night out, an academy representative heard her talking about her career as intervention specialist at other alternative schools. The representative encouraged her to apply for a position at the school.

She met with academy Founder John Gregory and joined to help to launch the charter school in Columbus.

“It’s really a grassroots effort,” Muenster says. “This is the greatest place you can work.”

Teachers are not pigeonholed into one way of teaching, she says, and are encouraged to seek out different opportunities. In the decade she’s been teaching there, the school has only told Muenster “no” once.

In every other instance, Muenster has pursued grant opportunities, which have led the school to become part of the National Honor Society and take more than 40 students on a Washington, D.C., field trip.

“We figured out a way to do it,” she says.

A majority of the students who attend the academy have either dropped out or been expelled from public schools. The academy has helped steer those students to find career opportunities in technical careers, particularly in the medical field.

In previous years, Muenster woke up at 3 a.m. to pick up the seven students who could fit in her vehicle to transport them from urban Columbus to a Hilliard clinic to get hands-on experience twice a month.

“She works well beyond school hours to make sure that all of her students’ needs are met, and that’s truly what captured me,” Jeltema says. “I knew she needed and deserved the classroom environment and atmosphere for her and her students.”