I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Zombie Charters Will Not Die!

It's alive! Alive, I say!

July 26, 2012
RE: Parent Meeting Dear Regis Academy Charter School Parents:
Frederick Douglas once said, Where there is no struggle, there is no progress”. We are continuing to progress forward with our mission and goal to teach, train and prepare the coming generation of leaders by establishing a learning community that will prepare children for the real world in the classroom and in life.
Additionally, we would like to take this time to express our sincere gratitude for your continued encouragement and support along this journey.
Toward this end, we are requesting your attendance at a very important meeting regarding the status of our appeal and the next steps. Please make every effort to attend this meeting. 
Abolitionists and charter school founders: yeah, they're practically the same thing...

Regis Academy was denied a charter for some very obvious reasons; chief among them was that the town where they were setting up did not want nor need them. Now they're appealing through the courts. Suppose some judge decides to grant them a charter - then what?

Cherry Hill had to budget $600,000 for Regis, but when their charter wad denied, they planned on putting the money into their general budget; maybe they are going to hire some new teachers. Will they then have to extract the funds back out? Will they have to fire the people they just hired?

The charter approval process in New Jersey is hopelessly broken. It's not fair to the students of Cherry Hill, and it's not fair for the families who signed up to go to Regis. But dumb stuff like this is going to keep happening until the NJDOE gets its act together.

Until then, there should be a moratorium on all charters. We don't need more zombie schools that refuse to die.

Success For All! Success For All! Success...

1 comment:

Deb said...

When a charter school is closing, and I would assume it applies to those denied final charter, I believe there is a requirement that all families of enrolled students are informed within a short time frame. Has Khan sent out those letters? If not the sending districts should and then re- enroll the students back into the public schools.

Khan can fight it out in a long court process, but there will be no students and no money when he is done.