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Amid mounting criticisms that charter schools do not serve the neediest students, the state’s charter school authorizers are making a push to approve more charter schools that make those children a priority.

This week, the Board of Regents gave its stamp of approval to several schools that describe their mission as serving high-needs students, such as children with special needs, who are homeless, or who are over-age for their grade.

The schools include a school run by the Children’s Aid Society, which plans to serve students in the high-poverty South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania. That school was authorized by  the State University of New York earlier this year, along with several other schools that will target their recruitment and services to high-needs students.

SUNY also approved two ROADS charter schools, which say they will enroll students who are over-aged but lack the credits needed to graduate. Those join several other recently approved or opened schools that SUNY selected for their commitments to underserved children.

Cynthia Proctor, a SUNY spokeswoman, said the new schools would still be held accountable for their academic performance, even though high-needs students tend to fall short more frequently on test scores and some other measures of success.

“It is important to understand that the two goals are not mutually exclusive,” she said. (more…)

As a Bronx elementary school principal, Drema Brown routinely encountered students who were struggling to complete schoolwork without adequate health care, a stable address, or even electricity.

Challenges like those held Brown back from boosting academic achievement. Even worse, she said, she couldn’t solve the problems wrought by poverty, either.

“I might take it for granted that I can just take my daughter to an eye doctor’s appointment and I have insurance that is going to get her that $300, $400 pair of glasses. But sometimes in a school something as simple as that could languish for an entire school year,” said Brown, who headed P.S. 230 in the South Bronx’s District 9 from 2003 to 2007.

Now a top official at the Children’s Aid Society, the 158-year-old social services provider, Brown is leading an experiment in integrating health and social services into a school setting. Children’s Aid is set to open its charter school in the Morrisania section of the Bronx next fall. The Board of Regents formally approved the school’s charter earlier today.

Plans for the school have been in the works since 2009, when Richard Buery became Children’s Aid’s president and CEO. Buery, who has a background in law and education non-profit management, asked CAS staff who worked with community schools to think about how a community school operated by CAS could have a longer-term impact than the agency’s usual school partnerships.

The group already works with city schools to deliver social services and connect after-school programs. And since 2000 the group has run a full clinic in Morrisania, offering preventive services and a meeting place for families whose children are in foster care. But the new project marks Children’s Aid’s first venture into school management.

The clinic “is a visible presence in the community with lots of welcoming faces,” Brown said. “Our mission now is to a establish a school that feels the same way for kids and their families so that education becomes more attractive and a welcoming experience.”

That’s a sentiment that hasn’t always been present in the South Bronx, which has a longstanding reputation for poverty, crime and lackluster public schools. (more…)