Regis Replies

For those of you who have been following the story of the rise and fall of Regis Academy Charter School, here's the latest:

Earlier this week, Khan said he and the diocese had reached a “friendly agreement” and said he was vacating the property on July 18. He said his church had been leasing the building and could leave at any point, since he was only paying month-to-month.

Khan said he had no comment yet on where the church was relocating to or if he would be appealing or reapplying for the charter application in the future.

But, Khan did send a letter to Popoff in response to the DOE’s letter of denial dated July 6, expressing his concern over being denied the charter.

“Regis Academy did not make any material misrepresentations either in its charter application or during the charter preparedness process,” Khan wrote in his July 9 letter, obtained from the DOE. “There is simply no basis upon which the commissioner’s determinations, at least conveyed by your letter, meet even the barest requirements of due process.”

Well, I'm pretty sure the good folks of Cherry Hill, Voorhees, and all the other towns affected by Regis would say they didn't have any due process rights when it came to the approval of Regis's charter, but whatever.

I actually feel badly for Amir Khan. His application never should have gone this far; it wasn't right for the NJDOE to string him along like this. I have no doubt he and his board put in many hours trying to get this application approved when it was clear it never should have gone past the preliminary stages.

The takeaway here is that the NJDOE's charter application and oversight processes are hopelessly broken. There should be a moratorium on all new charters until ACTING Commissioner Cerf releases the charter report he promised 494 days ago: