DOT's strange response to sign request

Hi Crappy,

DOT refused a request to put a No Parking sign (during school hours) in front of the new charter school here in Woodhaven. Currently it is the home for a school that has a lot of kids with special needs.

The reason DOT gave for rejecting the request is that there was a hydrant there, and they said the school should just use that. (It's actually in front of my house, not the school).

We went around and found seven schools in the immediate area with No Parking signs (during school hours) directly next to hydrants.

Hope all is well with you,

Ed Wendell
Woodhaven

Big Bad Bill doesn't impress anyone in Albany

From AM-NY:

Who's afraid of Mayor Bill de Blasio in Albany?

Not state Senate Republicans, who denied his request for permanent mayoral control of New York City schools, granting him one year instead.

Not Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who didn't deny he and his team were the unnamed officials in news reports who belittled the mayor as "incompetent" and clueless on influencing the legislative process.

Not advocates for charter schools, who won a lifting of a cap for new schools over de Blasio's opposition in the three-way agreement last week among Cuomo, state Senate Republicans and the Democrat-led state Assembly.

"There isn't a fear factor with Bill. There is a fear factor with Andrew," political consultant George Arzt said.

After the legislature went home, mayoral aides who spoke on condition of anonymity sought to paint a more positive picture of how de Blasio fared, saying they secured the affordable housing requirement he had championed in the real estate tax abatement known as 421-a.

Aides also indicated they had no plans to rethink their approach in Albany. The mayor said he didn't regret campaigning aggressively, albeit unsuccessfully, against state Senate Republicans last year.

Queens to get a bunch of charter schools

NYC PubNonPubNewAppsReceiptNotice

From: Charter Schools [mailto:Charter.Schools@suny.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2014 6:37 PM
To: Fitzsimons, Sean
Cc: Rossi, Ralph
Subject: Notification of Receipt of Proposals to Establish New Charter Schools

To: Members of the Community Education Councils and Community Boards:

Please find attached for your information a copy of the notice the SUNY Charter Schools Institute posted on its website today. The notice details proposals to establish new charter schools in Community School Districts 2, 3, 6, 9, 13, 14, 15,16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30 or 32. Please note that New York State Education Department regulations require the New York City Department of Education to hold public hearings regarding these proposals within 30 days.

The Charter Schools Institute welcomes comments on the proposals via email to: charters@suny.edu or in writing to the attention of Mr. Ralph Rossi, SUNY Charter Schools Institute, 41 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207.

Thank you,

Sean G. Fitzsimons
Director of School Applications
SUNY Charter Schools Institute
41 State St., Suite 700
Albany, New York 12246
Tel: 518.445.4273 Fax: 518.427.6510
E-mail: sean.fitzsimons@suny.edu
Be a part of Generation SUNY: Facebook - Twitter - YouTube

New charter school law puts DeBlasio in a pickle

From the NY Times:

A charter school network’s plan to double in size over the next few years could reignite a war over classroom space in New York City, only this time with the ground rules already tilted against the mayor.

A new state law passed in April gives the city just two options to meet the demands of the Success Academy network: It can hand over free space in public or private buildings, or give the schools money to find their own space.

The first option has frequently led to angry protests from the parents and teachers in schools that have to share space. The latter route would come with spiraling financial costs, as well as potential political ones, underscoring the new law’s unspoken aim: to get the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to be more collegial to the charter school sector.

“There are all sorts of hidden ways that this work can be made much harder than it has to be,” said Eva S. Moskowitz, the Success Academy founder. Ms. Moskowitz is adroit at mobilizing support from parents and public officials. Her march on Albany last winter, after the mayor briefly blocked three of her schools from city space, helped set the new law into motion, and she vowed last week to ensure that “the law is followed.”

With 22 schools serving 6,700 students, her network is already larger than many New York State school districts. She already has approval to open 10 more schools in the city, and said last week that she intends to apply to the state for permission to open 14 more, which would give her 46 schools, in every borough but Staten Island, by 2016.

Charter schools are where it's at

From the Daily News:

Enrollment at traditional public schools in the city declined over the last 10 years as students flocked to charter schools, new data revealed Tuesday.

Nearly 59,000 students attended publicly funded, privately run charters in the 2012-13 school year, compared with a paltry 2,400 in 2002-03, according to an analysis by the Independent Budget Office.

That’s an increase of 2,328%.

Meanwhile during that same period, enrollment at traditional public schools dropped from more than 1 million students to 980,000.

James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said 70,000 kids are enrolled in charters in the 2013-14 school year.
That’s a decrease of 6.2%.

The analysis included the roughly 1.3 million students attending kindergarten through the 12th grade in the city.

NYC schools are pretty segregated

From Crains:

New York state has the most segregated public schools in the nation, with many black and Latino students attending schools with virtually no white classmates, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles looks at enrollment trends from 1989 to 2010.

In New York City, the largest school system in the U.S. with 1.1 million pupils, the study notes that many of the charter schools created over the last dozen years are among the least diverse of all, with less than 1% white enrollment at 73% of charter schools.

"To create a whole new system that's even worse than what you've got really takes some effort," said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project and an author of the report.

He and his fellow researchers say segregation has the effect of concentrating black and Latino students in schools with high ratios of poor students compared with the statewide average. Black and Latino students who attend schools that are integrated by race and income level perform significantly better than their peers in segregated schools, the authors note.

The study suggests that New York's segregation is largely due to housing patterns, but that it could be mitigated through policies intended to promote diversity.

Charter school in trouble

From NY1:

There's something rotten at Merrick Academy Charter School, something besides the raw sewage that leaked into the basement in recent weeks.

The 500-student school was supposed to start 2014 in a new building, a former Catholic School, but that was delayed by several days, leaving parents to scramble for childcare.

Charter school boards are supposed to make all major financial and operational decisions. But several trustees say they never even saw, let alone inspected or voted on, the 10-year multi-million dollar lease.

NY1 obtained a copy of the lease and the only name on it is Gerald Karikari, board chairman at Merrick Academy since 2004. The lease began a full year before the school moved in, meaning for at least 12-months, it was renting two buildings. The lease terms suggest the public charter school is now responsible for major costly repairs to the church-owned building.

These are not the first management issues or allegations of impropriety involving Merrick Academy. Years ago, several founding board members, including state Sen. Malcolm Smith and Rep. Gregory Meeks, resigned amidst reports tying them to another questionable real estate deal involving the school.

From NY1:

At Merrick Academy Charter School much of the public money that's supposed to go towards educating students is actually going towards real estate.

Parents are angry.

"There's rules that should be followed, that wasn’t followed,” said parent Kenneth Samaroo.

Several members of the school's board of trustees agree, saying their chairman, Gerald Karikari, has been making decisions without consulting the rest of them, like signing a new multi-million dollar lease while the school was still paying rent on its old lease. In January, students moved to the new building and, as we've told you, there've been a lot of issues like no heat and a sewage back-up.

There's also been a lot of costs.

“The totals for construction were about half a million dollars to get everything done. In order to get out of the old site's lease, we had to do a buyout of $462,000. So with all of those figures adding up, including the rent that we paid when no one was in the building, it's roughly around $1.5 million,” said board member Michael Zampella.

And every dollar counts. Merrick gets $7.5 million in taxpayer money each year, the same amount per student as other city schools, but at Merrick much less makes it to the classroom.

From NY1:

Merrick was started by a for-profit company, Victory Education Partners. The state has since outlawed for-profit charter managers, but existing relationships were allowed to continue.

Merrick pays Victory at least $750,000 a year, but the areas where Victory says it helps the school, like staffing, academics and operations, have all been riddled with problems.

While there is no indication that SUNY plans to intervene any time soon, its own evaluators found the school in disarray as far back as 2011, writing, in part, "The absence of an effective leadership structure since February 2010, coupled with the decline in student achievement, reflects a failure of the board."

Years later, that's exactly what several board members say.

"As a board, we are responsible to ensure the safety and well-being of the students, and we failed," said Michael Zampella, a member of the school's board.

Private students getting public busing

From the Daily News:

State lawmakers are pushing to enhance bus service for yeshivas in a way city officials fear could wind up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of extra dollars, sources said.

A measure that is wrapped into state budget talks and is being promoted heavily by Senate Republicans would require the city to offer busing for all private students in classes taught after 4 p.m. Most of those students attend yeshivas.

The plan also includes a provision that would require city buses transporting after-hour students to drop them off within 600 feet of home, a city source said.

Current regulations require city buses to stop within a half-mile for students in second grade or younger, and within a mile for those between third and sixth grades.

A city memo obtained by the Daily News urges lawmakers to reject the proposal.

Being required to stop within 600 feet of a child’s home, the memo says, “would require twice as many stops as current ... practice, at additional cost.”

City officials are worried that providing a superior service for yeshiva students will lead parents of students at public schools, charter schools and other private schools to clamor for equal treatment, sources said.

The state and city split the cost of busing kids to private schools during the regular school day.

But last year, over the objections of Mayor Bloomberg, the Senate GOP successfully pushed to require city bus service for students at private schools that offer classes until at least 5 p.m.

Thirty schools took advantage — 29 Yeshivas and one charter school — for a total cost increase that was capped at $3 million.

More charter schools for Queens

From the Daily News:

More than a half dozen charter schools are vying to open in the fall of 2013 in Queens, the borough with the most school overcrowding in the city.

Seven of the controversial institutions have made it to the final rounds of the notoriously difficult state application process. Decisions are expected in October by the state Board of Regents and the SUNY Charter Schools Institute.

The proposed schools center on everything from working with foreign-born students to having a Chinese-based curriculum with mandatory martial arts training.

“Charters have a place in our educational system,” said Isaac Carmignani, co-president of the Community Education Council District 30, a northwestern Queens parents group.

But “what would concern me is if they’re...drawing resources away from our district schools,” he said. “I’d be concerned about co-location [in public schools.]”

James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, which supports the institutions, said there are only 11 Queens charters due to the dearth of available space in the borough.

There are 61 charters in Brooklyn, 44 in the Bronx, 42 in Manhattan and three in Staten Island, according to the center.

Charter school opening at Christ the King

From the Forum:

The public got a glimpse Tuesday night of the intermediate charter school that could open at Christ the King Regional High School by the 2013 school year.

If approved by the Department of Education (DOE), the Middle Village Preparatory Charter School could take 360 students into a intense study program featuring double math and English periods plus three years of Latin.

At Tuesday’s public hearing on the proposed school, Michael Michel, president of Christ the King Regional High School (CTK), outlined the plan.

The prep school would be designed to help kids get into the specialized high school of their choice by giving them a strong math and English foundation.

He touted the idea for using space that’s currently available and unused in the 280,000 square foot CTK campus to house kids from crowded District 24.

“By us taking some students that will help alleviate some space,” he said.

Michael Michel, president of Christ The King Regional High School, briefed Community Education Council 24 and the public about plans to start a charter school in the high school's building.

Eventually the school would house 360 students. The first year would start with 120 sixth-graders and add a new crop each year for two years.

The local Community Education Council 24 mostly threw their support behind the idea.

Malcolm Smith's charter school to close

From the Daily News:

Parents of students at a Rockaway Park charter school are in an uproar after the city announced it plans to close the elementary school in July.

Peninsula Preparatory Academy Charter School, which state Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Hollis) helped found in 2004, scored a “C” on its annual city report card for the last four years.

The city announced on Monday that it won’t renew the grades K-through-5 school’s charter.

Charter schools worse than regular schools

From the NY Post:

Traditional public schools bested the city's charter schools on annual report-card grades for the first time -- scoring 10 points higher on average on a 100-point scale, new data shows.

The city's more than 1,000 public elementary and middle schools averaged a B on their so-called "progress reports," which assign letter grades to schools based largely on how much students improve on state math and reading tests in a given year.

By comparison, the city's 60 charter schools that received letter grades this year averaged a C+.

"This means that either the strategy Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor [Joel] Klein have touted so often for school reform -- the creation of more charter schools -- isn't working, or that the entire progress-report methodology, which relies almost completely on standardized test scores, is flawed," said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew.

Bloomberg gets an F

From the Daily News:

New Yorkers are giving Mayor Bloomberg a failing grade on his signature issue - improving the city's schools.

Asked whether Bloomberg has succeeded in "his top priority as mayor," nearly half, or 49%, said he'd "failed in his goal," a new Marist-Daily News poll finds. Thirty-eight percent said he'd succeeded.

But the majority of New Yorkers polled believe charter schools - key to Bloomberg's education reform efforts - are "good."

Results were more evenly split among New Yorkers who have kids in public school, with 46% saying he succeeded and 48% saying he hasn't.

Behar rejected lobbying money

From City Hall:

Steve Behar, an attorney mounting a race in Queens for the seat of retiring Assembly Member Ann-Margaret Carrozza, claims that two pro-charter school bundlers have enough faith in his candidacy to have offered to raise him up to $200,000 in exchange for him changing his position on charter schools to support their expansion.

Many in what was a wide field of Democrats cleared out of the race at the end of last month, after Ed Braunstein, a staffer for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, received the support of the Queens County Democratic organization. Among those who did not is Behar, who lost a primary battle for the Council seat eventually won by Dan Halloran, and has remained in the race.

Braunstein is likely to be backed by the generally charter-cool teachers unions, given that he has the support of Silver, an ally of the unions. But in a letter written to the website Queens Teacher, Behar claimed that he was being courted to come out in favor of the charters.

“In the last few weeks two separate ‘political fundraisers’ promised to raise between $100K and $200K for my campaign if I changed my position to favor charter schools,” Behar wrote. “Since I’m running against a well-funded inexperienced and unqualified candidate (Ed Braunstein) who works for the Albany leadership and is in the pocket of the lobbyists and the special interests, that money would have really helped my campaign. However, keeping to my core beliefs, I refused to change my position and thus refused the money.”

In an interview, Behar said he turned the bundlers down on principle. He declined, however, to give the names of the two bundlers, citing concerns about scaring away future potential fundraisers and donors to his campaign.

All Behar would say is that one of the people he claims was involved approached him three weeks ago at the New York State Young Democrats convention, and the other approached him at a political event a week ago. When asked which event, though, Behar said he could not recall.

When told about the letter, Braunstein’s campaign blasted Behar for not disclosing who the bundlers were, and said he should report such incidents to the police, if they in fact occurred.

Paterson upset that he can't bribe lawmakers

From the Daily News:

Gov. Paterson gave a stunning reason Tuesday for why he can't persuade lawmakers to boost the number of charter schools: He can't afford to buy them off.

"In the past, governors gave them all kinds of resources in exchange for support for these programs," Paterson said when asked what he could do to get the Assembly to pass a bill increasing charters to 460 from 200.

"We don't have the money to exchange those resources, so we're just trying to use the power of persuasion."

Horse trading is certainly nothing new. In 1998, the Legislature first signed off on charter schools in exchange for Gov. George Pataki's support for a pay raise.

The governor's candid confession came on the same day that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited three Brooklyn schools to push Albany to raise the cap on charters and to press the case for more federal cash to save teaching jobs.

Electricians doing work on schools get hosed

From the Times Ledger:

The operators of a Long Island City electric contracting company have alleged that a nonprofit company that builds charter schools for minority students in the five boroughs is shortchanging them out of more than $25,000 for work they did on a site in Washington Heights.

Siegfried Espinoza, owner of Rico Electric, and business partner Barry Hirsch said they were not paid in full for electrical work they performed as a sub-contractor on the New Heights Academy Charter School, located along Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan’s Washington Heights.

They allege that Manhattan nonprofit Civic Builders, which develops charter schools, originally planned to pay them an estimated $600,000 for work on the school. Espinoza had said the developer did not pay his company until several months after they completed the project and that Rico Electric was shorted $60,000.

Rico’s contract was with Kel-Mar Designs Inc., the general contractor that had been brought on by TLM Group, Civic’s construction manager. Espinoza said he and his partner will settle with Civic for $17,500 with an additional $7,500 each from Kel-Mar and TLM.

The total amount that Rico Electric will be underpaid is now estimated between $25,000 and $30,000, Espinoza contended.

From the Daily News:

A Queens school construction contractor skimmed more than $2 million off his city projects by failing to pay workers properly, the state attorney general's office said Wednesday.

Kostas (Gus) Andrikopoulosis is accused of cheating the School Construction Authority by pretending to pay fake workers - and compensating real ones less than he reported.

"This employer pocketed millions of dollars of taxpayer money and stole from his own workers in the process," Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.

His company, Hara Electric Corp., has received $22 million in contracting work from the School Construction Authority since 2005.

"To deny workers their rightful wages is illegal and wrong, and it will not be tolerated. Employers should be on notice that they must pay legal wages or they will face the consequences," Cuomo said.

Andrikopoulosis faces up to 25 years in jail if convicted.

Stella Maris to become home to charter school

From the Daily News:

The politically connected Queens charter school that held classes in drab trailers with no playground, lab or gym is finally moving into a real building.

Following a Daily News investigation earlier this year, Peninsula Preparatory Charter School officials announced they'll move into a Catholic school building five miles away this fall.

The space will become available because Stella Maris High School is closing.

The announcement marks the end for the 67-year-old, all-girls Stella Maris High School, which will close its doors because of declining enrollment and a looming budget deficit. School officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"I'm all for charter schools, and it's nice they're moving out of the trailers into a beautiful building," said Theresa McCann, a 1978 Stella Maris graduate. "But it's a tragedy that the high school won't exist."

Einsteins in the Bronx

From the Riverdale Press:

Between West 230th and 231st streets, across from where the new Kingsbridge Library is being built, 3050 Corlear Ave. has become a neighborhood nuisance on the way to becoming an apartment building.

According to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, neighbors have been calling his office to complain about vehicles used for construction on the property owned by Sycamore Court Apartments, LLC. They have griped about damaged sidewalks, dust from the site and litter left behind daily by workers with no apparent regard for more permanent residents.

Neighbors on the block have complained about work being done after designated hours and damage done to property. Most recently, they have been up in arms over a fire hydrant they say was ripped out of the ground by construction workers, leaving behind only a small hole filled with water that runs down the block.

Less than a block away, 3120 Corlear Ave. is also on the rise. In addition to apartments, the building, owned by Pancas International, was slated to house the Bronx Community Charter School, beginning in the fall of 2010.

Construction glitches have included building equipment encroaching on a neighbor’s property and the developer’s accidental run-in with water while building above the buried Tibbett’s Brook, Mr. Dinowitz said.

“When these Einsteins struck water, it wasn’t a shocker to me,” he said, adding that everyone in the neighborhood knows the brook is there.

More charter school shenanigans in SE Queens

From the Daily News:

Students at Merrick Academy charter school - housed in an old bowling alley in Queens Village - must cross busy Jamaica Ave. for recess in a nearby park because there's no gym or playground.

They also must get used to water leaking into classrooms when it rains and wearing winter coats inside when there's no heat.

There's also another potential problem - one many parents may not know about: Merrick has served as a source of campaign funds and patronage for one of its high-profile board members - State Senate President Malcolm Smith.

Smith was one of the founding members of Merrick and was on its board from the time it moved into the alley in 2001 through June 2007, records show.

During that time, the K-6 charter school - run entirely with public money - has written at least three small checks to Smith's campaign.

A state controller's audit in 2006 noted slack fiscal controls and singled out a $140 check written by a school employee to attend the fund-raiser of an unnamed state senator.

The Daily News discovered there were actually three checks - all written out of Merrick's checking accounts - to Smith's campaign: $65 in 2003, $140 in 2004 and another $140 in 2005. At the time, Smith was on the board.

While Smith was on Merrick's board, an architect did "preliminary drawings" regarding turning the bowling alley into a school. That architect also was working on one of Smith's personal properties at the time, records show.

The same architect was also later hired to design a home owned by another Merrick board member and Smith ally, Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks.

Developer connected to Smith's charter school

From the Daily News:

The phalanx of drab trailers ringed by a chain-link fence in a desolate corner of Queens looks more like a prison than a charter school.

The cramped Peninsula Preparatory Academy Charter School has no science lab, no gymnasium, no playground and no on-site kitchen. Hot meals are trucked in from 3 miles away, and the school's 300 students dodge cars just to reach the front door.

Only two years ago, the charter school founded by Senate President Malcolm Smith was housed inside a spacious public school 3 miles away in Far Rockaway.

The official reason for the relocation was "increased enrollment" - but the Daily News has learned Peninsula Preparatory Academy was moved to land owned and under development by one of Smith's top campaign donors.

Queens developer Benjamin Companies is in a partnership building homes near the school - and started using Peninsula as a selling point to hawk the seaside residences.

While the move may benefit the developer, it certainly didn't help students wedged inside the too-small trailers - with no end in sight.

Peninsula officials did not answer a long list of written questions from the Daily News. But The News found there may be another reason for the move.

Benjamin Companies' employees and several affiliates have contributed $144,500 to Smith's campaign and political action committee, Build New York PAC, since 2002, records show.

The Benjamin Companies is a major builder of affordable housing projects operated by Smith's former boss and political mentor, the Rev. Floyd Flake.

And the relationship doesn't end there. A member of Peninsula's board in 2004 and 2005 is a real estate broker whose clients include the Benjamin Companies' partnership developing the Far Rockaway site.