GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

parent voice

January 13, 2012

Parents of closing charter school tell officials they got it wrong

by Geoff Decker, at 1:56 pm

An informational session last night at the soon-to-be-shuttered Peninsula Preparatory Academy charter school turned into an emotional sounding board for frustrated parents.

“We find the decision wholly illogical, immoral, perhaps illegal and outright wrong,” said Josmar Trujillo, co-president of the school’s parent organization.

At the heart of their exasperation was the notion that the city was moving to close such a school in an area where few high quality options exist. Ninety-five percent of students who attend Peninsula Prep on the Rockaways are zoned for district schools that rank lower on city’s student performance index. The city plans to close one of those schools, P.S. 215, further limiting school options.

“What school would you choose if you had a choice and lived in the Rockaways?” Sharmeka Frazier asked Office of Charter Schools director Recy Dunn repeatedly in the video above.

Dunn said that the city would help a nearby charter school, Challenge Prep, revise its charter to accept 100 students displaced from Peninsula Prep. That school will go through third grade next year. But for Peninsula Prep’s remaining students, he had little to offer. Instead, he sat quietly as one parent after another confronted him about the planned closure, with testimonies that ranged from angry to confused to desperate.

It’s the first time that the city has moved to close a charter school that wasn’t failing and Dunn explained that charter schools are, by law, held to higher standards than district counter parts.

The answer did not satisfy many of the parents who believed that decision was a misguided attempt to set an example.

“This fight is not yet over,” said Joachin, who said a rally was tentatively planned for next week.

 

Print Print
  • NYCParent

    “Dunn explained that charter schools are, by law, held to higher standards than district counter parts.”  Oh really!  And where in the law does it say that?  And if it’s true, then there is no reason for the DOE to keep closing district schools because they aren’t performing as well as some nearby charter that kicks out its lower-performing students!  Speaking of which, I’m sure this closure speed-up is to fill up Eva’s quota of 40 schools while Bloomberg is still in office.  No doubt they have similar deals with KIPP and New Visions.

  • 1 Big Mess

    This is so funny!!!!  Every other article is the same – parents weeping, schools closing – ahaha ha ah aha ah ahahahahahhaaahhah ah ha ah ahha ahhahahhahahhahahhaaaaaaaaa!!!!
    This system SUCKS!  Bloomberg is working on the last thing he could possibly do as he crawls out of office which is “LEGACY.”  His legacy is SHOT in the educational field.  There’s more lawyers at Tweed than teachers in Brooklyn – ahahah aha ha hahahahahhaha ha hahah ahhaaaaa!!!!
    It has NEVER been about the kids.  The parents STILL don’t get it.  There’s no true parent group REPRESENTING the public school parents.  They just let this roll through.  I can’t believe these parents just WATCH!!  In my community, NEVER would the parents stand for this NONSENSE about:
    Restart
    Transformation
    Transition
    Networks
    Lawyers
    Coaches
    Instructional Leaders
    Small Schools
    Davidson Models
    This Model
    That Model
    Closing Schools
    Opening Schools
    Underqualified Principals
    ATR’s
    PLA’s
    XYZ’s
    Charters
    Merit
    ETCCCC!!!!!!

    NOT WORKING!  HOW ABOUT WE LET THE TEACHERS TEACH KIDS AND DUMP EVERY OTHER PROGRAM WHILE SAVING BILLIONS?  IT HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT THE KIDS!  NO ONE CARES AND THE PARENTS JUST WATCH!  I would like to thank GOD for blessing me to have the brains enogh to send my kids to a school system that does not have the above list.  My kids learn without these distractions.  Thank you GOD, thank you so much!!!!!  I feel so bad for the parents who had to deal with the last decade of Bloomberg’s administration. 

    What was the high school graduation rate when Bloomberg took over?  What is it now?  What are the REAL numbers.  He said “half way we have climbed” – what’s the percentage increase from his 1st year to NOW in the hs grad rate?  DOES SOMEONE OUT THERE KNOW?

  • Ken Hirsh

    Powerful video.  It would be great to see the video for his response.

  • Josmartrujillo
  • Josmartrujillo

    A former DOE official told me that this is the first time in his memory (who was in Dunn’s position in the past for dozens or even hundreds of closures) that students were being reverted to lower performing schools.

  • katherina

    We won’t let this happen without fighting for what is ours.  I had the oppurtunity of moving out of the Rockaways when I was purchasing a house and I decided not to just because my kids attend PPA. This is not a failing school.

  • Ticked-Off Taxpayer

    Time to “Occupy” your school!

  • Tim

    Having a school — district, charter, parochial, whatever — shut down is an agonizing, awful outcome for the parents and students who’ve invested so much time and energy in the place. But the terms of the charter are cut-and-dried, and this particular school was already operating on a second-chance basis. It failed to meet all of the items on its probationary to-do list, and it needs to close. What’s the alternative, really? 

    I would be more receptive to the argument that PPA should remain open because of its test-score edge over district schools if its enrollment mirrored that of its home district, but as is almost inevitably the case with city charter schools, it does not. PPA didn’t have a single ELL student on its roll in 2009-2010, a smell-test-failing and frankly appalling circumstance in a district that’s 10% ELL. PPA educates significantly fewer special ed students than the district, 7% of enrollment to 18%. And District 27 has a higher rate of free-lunch eligible students, 68% to 56%.

    Don’t get me wrong: if given a choice, I’d choose the school that has fewer problem children and can kick out problem children. But I wouldn’t at the same time think I was occupying the moral high ground. 

  • Josmartrujillo

    Cut and dry? The standards and even the tests were changed by the DOE which resulted in the C grades in the latter years. Those grades would have been higher and still are compared with the rest of the schools in the area. PPA is the 2nd best performing school in our community.

    Tim, where did you get those figures? The school is full of immigrants and while Im not sure if we have ELL students how would you suggest that the school keeps those students out? As far as Im aware its a lottery entry into PPA. Could that be the barrier (the entry process) that has resulted in disproportionate ELL percentages? What are the norms for charters? If thats a byproduct of the system as is then your criticism may lie outside of the school itself. What are PPA’s numbers with regards to special needs children? My son is one and I know for a fact that he’s one among many in the school. And that doesnt include those whose parents are in denial. So I think those classic anti-charter criticisms (some of which are undoubtedly true for many charters) dont apply to PPA. See thats what sucks: we all say “put the children” before the politics” but nobody can do it, no matter how well meaning they may be. And for all the claims about charters undermining pub edu (some valid), people would rather take a glance at some figures and cast judgement… very reminicent of the DOE folks, actually. And Im not sure where you got a figure of 56%. Numbers I have seen are more like 80%.

    And how about this for an alternative: keep the children together, reopen the school (charter, district, whatever… just keep the kids, staff and teachers together to continue their gains) and NOT stuff 346 kids into overcrowded zoned schools.

  • Josmartrujillo

    Cut and dry? The standards and even the tests were changed by the DOE which resulted in the C grades in the latter years. Those grades would have been higher and still are compared with the rest of the schools in the area. PPA is the 2nd best performing school in our community.

    Tim, where did you get those figures? The school is full of immigrants and while Im not sure if we have ELL students how would you suggest that the school keeps those students out? As far as Im aware its a lottery entry into PPA. Could that be the barrier (the entry process) that has resulted in disproportionate ELL percentages? What are the norms for charters? If thats a byproduct of the system as is then your criticism may lie outside of the school itself. What are PPA’s numbers with regards to special needs children? My son is one and I know for a fact that he’s one among many in the school. And that doesnt include those whose parents are in denial. So I think those classic anti-charter criticisms (some of which are undoubtedly true for many charters) dont apply to PPA. See thats what sucks: we all say “put the children” before the politics” but nobody can do it, no matter how well meaning they may be. And for all the claims about charters undermining pub edu (some valid), people would rather take a glance at some figures and cast judgement… very reminicent of the DOE folks, actually. And Im not sure where you got a figure of 56%. Numbers I have seen are more like 80%.

    And how about this for an alternative: keep the children together, reopen the school (charter, district, whatever… just keep the kids, staff and teachers together to continue their gains) and NOT stuff 346 kids into overcrowded zoned schools.

  • http://www.gothamschools.org Elizabeth Green

    Ken, my understanding is that this video does include the only response Dunn gave to this parent: he sat quietly, as Geoff writes in the story.

  • Josmartrujillo

    Might be in the works.

  • Los Flerpos

    “I’d choose the school that has fewer problem children and can kick out problem children.”

    In strictly utilitarian terms, is there any doubt that allowing schools to dump “problem children” would be the most effective education reform policy possible?  I’m always surprised that it’s not discussed more.  The downsides are not insignificant — it’s a civil rights issue, ultimately — but if we left the lawyers out of it, I can’t imagine how this wouldn’t improve the educations of hundreds of thousands of NYC students overnight.

  • Bj

    So in your view of the world you get rid of the problem children what if you were a parent of a problem child and someone wanted to get rid of your child? 
    Lets see if a child had a significant event in their lives your answer if they acted out would be to exclude them. It would improve the lives of all the other children.
    Lets see if we excluded children based on their religion or their color according to you that would be ok. 
    Each and every time you comment it becomes clearer to me where you are coming from.
    I know its all about the children its not about your warped sense of whats right and wrong.

    Send the special education students far away from your kids it would improve the education of thousands of NYC students overnight.
    Someone else tried to do this in the 1940′s and where is he now?

  • Trollsareus

    Would love to be a lawyer on this case
    ANYONE KNOW A LAWYER?
     SORRY ANYONE KNOW A GOOD LAWYER?

  • Youshouldbeashaned

    If he is a lawyer with disruptive children you can’t hire him find a lawyer with normal children. It will improve the education of thousands of children overnight.

  • Los Flerpos

    Like I said, it’s a civil rights issue, there are formidable legal arguments to prevent it from happening, and the potential for injustice in individual cases is great.  But what about the majority of students?  Do we want to improve education for them, or not so much?

    P.S.  Why do you bother with the pretense that you’re not posting under a thousand different user names?  Your hallmark illiteracy gives you away every time.

  • Speakthetruth

    At least I’m not an elitist racist hiding behind a law degree.
    What do you know about the majority of students you have proven you know nothing about everything.

  • Tim

    Josmartrujillo,

    When I said “cut and dried,” I was referring to the nine benchmarks PPA was told it had to meet to avoid closure. It failed to meet five of the nine goals, not just the goal based on the DOE progress report grade. 

    I got the numbers in my post straight from the most recent NYSED school report cards for PPA and for District 27 (new report cards for 2010-2011 ought to be issued in a couple of weeks). PPA enrolled a grand total of one English-language-learning child between 2004-2010. I didn’t say that PPA didn’t educate special ed students, only that it had a considerably smaller percentage than the district average. The 80% number you’ve heard is probably free-lunch plus reduced-price, which is needlessly imprecise and potentially misleading given the much higher reduced-price kids in NYC’s NAEP scores. 

    But really, the central issue here is that PPA, like any other charter school, was granted independence in exchange for accountability. To avoid closure, whoever runs PPA agreed to meet nine specific goals in exchange for a truncated provisional extension of the charter. They didn’t meet five of the nine goals. Whether the goals were fair or ridiculous isn’t relevant. 

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Follow GothamSchools

RSS
Subscribe to the daily email digest:

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

2 comments so far today
View all comments »

RSS Feeds

Newsroom posts Community posts All GothamSchools content

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Copyright Notice