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Dejected in D13 – No the DOE didn’t take that into consideration. PS 369 was going to loose rooms that they need for instructional and therapeutic services. That’s why they fought it. CRCS states in their letter that there is a lot of incorrect information out there and that is a big one. Just because the DOE stated that all schools would have had enough space in the end, PS 369 would have lost rooms that are crucial to their program.

The winners are all the students in the co-located schools who get to keep the space they need to meet their educational needs without overcrowding.

Your arrogant, elitist and supremacist statement eludes an air of cult like exceptionalism that is frankly quite frightening. Are charter kids educated to think this way?
Then if we had a choice would we want to share our facility with YOU!
Forgot about the union.
Parent of CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS in a school that educates students with classifications of Autism and Emotional Handicaps have the same rights as other parents. District 75 schools are specialized public schools that must compile with certain class size ratio along with therapies mandated by federal laws.
If your fight is with the DOE, then direct it towards them!
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The EIS and BUP are full of discrepancies and incorrect information. How can a school that’s 97% filled to capacity be considered to have “ample space” for an extra 150 students? The simple fact is that there is not enough space to house more students. It’s great that CRCS wants to expand, just not in that building.

This is in response to aCRCS parent: Were you at the rally that supposedly had “kids on school buses surrounded by cursing picketers”? I don’t think you were. I was. What you’ve stated is a LIE. That rally was peaceful and respectful. Children were not cursed at…you are extremely misinformed. The people at that rally actually care about children. Speaking out for their students that don’t have the ability to speak for themselves. Educators that go above and beyond the “call of duty” because their students are as important to them as your child is to you. These “hearsay” statements are irresponsible and hurtful to the parents and teachers that were exercising their First amendment right in an appropriate manner.

D75Educator, the rally was in 2 areas: the back parking lot and the front around the school buses. I saw the back area and it was well-controlled although intimidating for a child to walk through. I did not see the school bus part but children reported that they heard adults cursing and at least one child was in tears when she got inside. Sadly the kids at the other schools picked up on this hostility too, and a couple of our kids were threatened in the bathroom. And “The Charter School Sucks” was written in chalk on the playground for all kids to see. I respect your work as an educator but these are facts about the climate that resulted from these actions.

To CRCS parent: The climate that resulted from this demonstration was due to your leaders and there false allegations. There was no cursing, pushing and throwing objects at children anywhere near that demonstration. School leaders are responsible for investigating any accusations before publicly incriminating those accused. Instead, your leaders used these false accusations to try to bully and intimidate the UFT members and administrators of the co-located schools in an effort to achieve their own agenda. If CRCS saw this behavior and did not stop it they are negligent in their duties as educators and leaders. Your leaders should have used this demonstration as a teachable moment to reassure and inform students of one’s own civil rights, instead of using them as pawns to denounce the people who were protecting the rights of their students.

Alright lets discuss unions. First of all I thought it was interesting that only real protesters I saw was the UFT in all of this. They were protecting the jobs of their members which is understandable. They were sacrificing the children in this case however, denying a good middle school for the district and protecting a school which faces declining enrollment each year and poor performance.

When I first found out my child got into CRCS, teachers at the preK my child attended told me how lucky I was and that they applied there several times for a teaching position. The teachers at CRCS are awesome and they enjoy working at the school. I am an educator myself, and a member of a union. Unions are great and they provide protection for workers but they can also be divisive and short sighted, taking the side of their members over the larger community. While I agree that what is going on in Wisconsin is a travesty, you may find it hard to believe but some teachers simply want to be a part of a great learning environment and see children reach their full potentials, even if it means they can be fired if they perform poorly or abuse a child. It is true that CRCS teachers will not be relocated to rubber rooms or shifted to another job if they do not put the kids first but they seem to agree with these priorities. The teachers are in fact the greatest asset of CRCS and they make the school great more than anyone else.

We cannot expect anything else can we? It’s a David and Goliath story. Sad part is the movement isn’t really about the merits of charter school or public and more how educator’s are willing to act in unethical ways for their interests and convenience with no regard for ethics and solidarity. We are all educators. Sacrificing any kids so adults can have convenience is sad, unethical and wrong. The charter school should look for an appropriate home, go through the hard work of settling in and focus on their students. The attempt to evict the special needs kids was misguided and wrong and ultimately backfired.

Hope you learned your lesson.

The cat is out of the bag? Surely, it’s no secret that charter schools are part of a vicious right-wing movement against the rights of teachers (and public education in general) and as such they receive preferable treatment from the DOE. Many people consider the rights of workers to be a social justice issue. Are you familiar with the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights? Have you followed recent events in Wisconsin?

You can’t claim that just because teachers have a legitimate interest in this fight that somehow it’s “not about” all the other issues involved. One doesn’t negate the others. It’s possible for the DOE to be wrong in more than one way.

Actually, your kids’ teachers can be fired even if they perform well and don’t abuse a child. That’s because they don’t have a union. I’m sorry you don’t believe they deserve basic democratic rights because they are part of a “great learning community”.