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NYCPA supports having this hearing because parents MUST know what their rights and their children’s rights are in charter schools. Unlike the DoE system, there are no chancellor regs, mandatory independent PA/PTA’s, district family advocates or CEC representation in charters.

So what are parents to do if they’re having an issue at their school? Depending on who your authorizer is, there are 3 different complaint procedures to follow. And, it MUST be a violation of the charter or by-laws which most parents have never seen much less know exists.

Parents must understand that their schools are held accountable to their charter and by-laws. Parents must be educated on the process which governs charter schools. Parents must know that it is the Board of Trustees that govern their charter school and the school leaders are answerable to the Board of Trustees.

Unfortunately, 99.9% of parents in charters do not have access to their school’s charter or by-laws and when requested have to FOIL their schools. This is unacceptable.

Every charter school should post their charter and by-laws online for parents to view and/or download. If they’re abiding by their charter and by-laws, they should willingly do it.

The charter and by-laws must be accessible to every parent who requests it so that parents may know what they can hold their school accountable for in educating their kids and know their rights when schools are attempting to expel, push out or counsel out their kids if they’re special ed or ELL.

Lastly, charter school board members MUST have governance training and understand their fiduciary responsibilities as board members. Board members need to remember they’re supposed to provide proper oversight and hold school leaders accountable.

We don’t need more laws that the NYS Education Dept. won’t enforce. Parent involvement, and parents’ right to have information about their children’s schools, is written into various federal and state laws in numerous ways. State Ed. doesn’t enforce them … and never will. If we get a law mandating that charters provide parents with information, much less allowing them any kind of input into how their children’s schools are run, it will just be more of the same thing. Empty words on paper.

More parental involvement certainly needs to be encouraged, and required where necessary, in NYS. If we’re ever going to get this, we first need to set up some kind of enforcement entity which is not the NYS Education Department. After that, the rest is easy.

Remember the riot at the Regents’ meeting last year when it turned out that State Ed. had approved a district’s C4E plan without having bothered to hold the “mandatory” public hearings so parents could provide input into the plan?

Here’s another good State Ed. one: A caring State Legislator got a law passed “mandating” that special ed. staff be trained in autism. State Ed.’s proposal was to require one 2-hour lecture! When it was pointed out that Rain Man was longer than this, State Ed. changed its proposal – and then passed it – requiring one 3-hour lecture! That’s Rain Man plus about 20 minutes for a Q&A. State Ed. didn’t like the law and didn’t want districts or graduate schools of education to be bothered by this little requirement, so it essentially nullified it by passing a regulation which made the law into a travesty. Now people who have sat through a single long lecture on an extraordinarily complicated disability can claim they are fully trained. The people who wrote this regulation, and the Regents who approved it, should be publicly razzed – at every opportunity.

State Ed. isn’t about to require charters to provide parents with detailed information and/or opportunities for them to have a legitimate voice in how their children’s schools are run because if they did so, there would be demands that the same requirements be in place for public schools. And that’s something State Ed. will never do.

Interim principal Tom is that you??? Oh, I’m sorry, you did put Tim didn’t you… No wonder your answer is to take our kids elsewhere… That is after all your M.O. get the money and then antagonize the students and disrespect the parents rights until they leave – right? Keep the name flinging to a minimum please… Hypocrite is usually so quickly used by those who wear it well and often.

Kitchensink, I went to your blog post and noted your comment about a “two-tiered system”, do you know the white population is rushing back to gentrified public schools… That they fundraise in the hundreds of thousands… Do you know the last school my child was in before this horror of a charter, went from good to worse, but only for the brown kids, most significantly boys… There is a BIG problem, and while shutting down charters won’t solve them all, if they have come to add to the burden and worse to demean and cause damage to our kids, then HECK NO! THEY’VE GOT TO GO! I too was all for “private level education at public school costs”, but the billionaires that are directing the charter schools aren’t playing slow and steady anymore, they need a quick turn around on their next generation of factory workers and inmates ( big money maker), not to mention the awesome returns on running a charter school itself… when a problem gets this out of hand you need to start at the beginning and the beginning is that charters were an experiment for best practices to be used in the public school… They weren’t suppose to cost more or do worse, but it would seem they endeavor to both. For me, in this case, deflection would be to ignore the abuse to the kids because the person willing to help has had what looks like a justifiable issue with charters. But didn’t Senator Perkins vote for the funding increase? I could be wrong, I’m far from a politico, but I am not mistaken about what is happening at my school – IT IS CRIMINAL – LITERALLY!

I am not against anyone, I am definitely FOR the children!

MF, I’m talking about reforms beginning with the heroic attempt to wrest community control of schools from the central bureaucracy in Ocean Hill-Brownsville. That was a good idea. But what followed was 40 years of bickering, one chancellor’s regulation after another as the city struggled with its own education federalism debate. That debate is still unresolved as we have this clunky mayoral control system in the place of the founders’ increased executive authority and separation of powers. I’m talking about reform of curriculum and work rules – reforms that have left thousands of dollars worth of brand new books sitting in school basements across the city, unusable because the district curriculum du jour was replaced before they even arrived, and that have left us counting 1/2 minutes added on to the school day. I’m neutral on these reforms – many of them have been good ideas – but my point is, they haven’t worked.

I’m no historian, but I bet Diane Ravitch would agree that the system has always worked fairly well for white people. It was in Manhattan in District 2 that principals first started having more control over their budget, spending more in professional development and less on administration, for example. Why is that? It isn’t something about black and brown people, because the ideas actually started in East Harlem with Anthony Alvarado. I don’t want to put words in anyone’s mouth, but I believe these (Manhattan’s Upper East Side in my example) are the gentrified schools the Parent above is describing.

As for your comment, Parent, you and your family deserve justice and fair treatment. I would never try to invalidate your experience, though I disagree with some of your conclusions about it. If there are abuses going on at your child’s charter school, you have an avenue for complaints: contact the board of trustees, then the authorizer if you do not have a satisfactory answer. Make sure you document everything that you are complaining about. The recent hubbub about ENYP highlights that parent voices make a difference. Much has been made of the fact that parents complained a year ago and only now is there action at that school, but remember the DOE was taking action last year and giving the school a chance to clean up its act.

You seem to be making a snap judgment about charter schools based on your experience. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, but here in the public sphere I’m sure I speak for others when I say I am left curious about more details of your experience. If you’d be willing to share, what is it that makes your child’s school experience resonant of a factory or prison?

I am a proud mom of my son’s charter school WE have a choice not your comments! And I’m glad that there are people out their to help our charter parents learn about there rights on Charter schools. So that OUR children will be protected in every means that’s necessary. Thank You Mr.Sen. Perkins for your support and we will be looking forward to your visit!

It’s so sad that this society never wants to see reality when it comes to their childrens future! Whether it’s public or private whatever the case might be. What really counts is that the children are being educated in LIFE!!! And we have alot of privilages now a days to what we want in life especially when it comes to OUR CHILDREN!!! I also will be looking forward to meeting MR. Perkins when he comes down to brooklyn.