School Board 30 Discusses Nature Of Charter Schools
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 08:29AM “What is a charter school?”
That was the question Michael Duffy, executive director of the Department of Education Office of Charter Schools, posed at the outset of a presentation to Community District Education Council 30 (CDEC 30).
“It is a public school, first and foremost, run by a separate board of trustees,” responded Stacey Gauthier, co-principal at the Renaissance Charter School, a well established charter school in Jackson Heights and a co-presenter at the CDEC 30 meeting, held at P.S. 166 on December 17.
There are 99 charter schools in the five boroughs, 30 in Queens. Four charters— Renaissance, Our World Neighborhood, VOICE and Growing Up Green—are located in District 30. “These are among the best that we’ve got in the city,” Duffy said.
But charters, under the New York State Charter Schools Act of 1998, are specifically “schools that operate independently of existing schools and school districts”.
“It is a point of frustration to me that [charter schools] are not a part of the community education council,” CDEC 30 Member Jeffrey Guyton said.
The Charter Act established independence from existing schools and school districts in order to accomplish several objectives. One is “to increase opportunities for all students with special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are at risk of academic failure”.
Referring to an October 30 Daily News report that said special education students make up about 16.4 percent of students at traditional public schools and 9.5 percent in charter schools, Guyton asked, “Are there provisions to enroll special education kids, or do [charters] skim the top students?”
Frank Headley, principal at VOICE charter school, said his school is seeking high need students and said 40 percent of the entering kindergarten class failed the English Language Learner test this year.
“We want to know if a student with special education needs is turned away from a charter school,” said Duffy.
“Charter schools don’t have to accept everyone,” said CDEC 30 Member Ernest Brooks.
VOICE uses direct mail to solicit applications from District 30 eligible kindergarten age children, Headley said. In the school’s first year, 80 students were accepted from 800 applications. This year, 40 were taken from a pool of 400 applications.
A lottery system is employed at Renaissance Charter School, where the waiting list stands at 1,500, said Gauthier.
“You asked us to define a charter school,” said CDEC 30 member Marius Titus, offering his own: “A charter school can be defined as a private school run by public money.”
Duffy disagreed. “No, they are free and any parent can send their child,” he said. But Duffy acknowledged that although charter schools receive public funding, that money is for operating expenses only. Charter schools receive no public money for facilities. For example, VOICE currently occupies space at P.S. 111, a district school.
“In the last couple of years, more charter schools have opened,” said a VOICE parent. “More parents have reached out to one another, especially over funding. I think regardless if you're a district school [parent] or a charter school [parent], we want to educate our children. But there’s only so much money,” she said.
