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A charter school network that’s under investigation by the state attorney general likely won’t have any schools in its portfolio after this year.

On Monday, the city Department of Education announced it would close Williamsburg Charter High School, the flagship school in the Believe High Schools network. Today, the State Education Department announced today that it intends to revoke the charters of the network’s two other schools, Believe Southside and Believe Northside.

In each case, the authorizers cited significant management and financial improprieties. The schools did not have functioning boards of trustees, the management unit for charter schools, according to revocation notices the state sent to the schools today.

The assault on Believe’s management seems sure to doom the organization. But the closures would also force well over a thousand students in Williamsburg to find new high schools. Students will submit applications through a second-round admissions process designed for students who are not accepted to any school in the regular process, DOE officials said. The first-round process is already well underway.

The revocation notices mark a final stage in a series of attempts to bring the schools’ management under control. All three schools were placed on probation last fall and required to take a series of steps to improve — including dissolving the relationship with Believe, in the case of WCHS. Both the city and the state said the schools had fallen far short of meeting the probation requirements.

There is still a slim chance that the schools, which together enroll more than 1,500 high school students, could remain open. The schools can seek a hearing with members of the state’s Board of Regents to make their case for continued existence. (more…)

Department of Education announced today that it is moving to close two low-performing charter schools, including one whose network head earned nearly half a million dollars last year and is under investigation by the Attorney General.

The city announced today it would close Williamsburg Charter High School.

One of the schools, Peninsula Preparatory Academy, will close at the end of the year when its charter expires. The 346 students at the school, which has gotten four straight C’s on its city progress reports, will be dispersed among other Far Rockaway elementary schools.

“We have had some struggles but I think the school was definitely on a positive trajectory,” said Ericka Wala, Peninsula Prep’s principal.

The department is taking an even more drastic step with the second school, Williamsburg Charter High School, and revoking its charter midway through the five-year term. Unless the school completely cleans up its management within 30 days, it will close at the end of the year and its students will have to apply to other high schools.

In a letter sent to the chair of WCHS’s board today, the head of the city’s charter schools office, Recy Dunn, paints a picture of massive mismanagement and corruption.

Most of the charges center on founder Eddie Calderon-Melendez, who earned $478,000 last year as the CEO of the Believe Charter Network, which has run Williamsburg and two other high schools.

Citing financial and board improprieties, the city placed the school on probation in September. Chief among the terms of the probation was that the school’s board would sever its relationship with Believe. It did so in November, begrudgingly, but then hired Calderon-Melendez to join the school’s staff earlier this month, according to the letter, which said the school had met just one of 10 probation requirements.

Now, state auditors and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are investigating the school’s relationship with Believe under Calderon-Melendez’s leadership. (more…)

Charter school principal Eddie Calderon-Melendez, right, speaking to parents and students at his schools' admission lottery. (GothamSchools, Flickr)

The conventional wisdom about charter schools is that they allow families a way out of their zoned schools. But for soon-to-be high school students, charter schools actually provide the nearest alternative to a zoned option, according to one school operator.

The high school admissions program run by the Department of Education is citywide, meaning that students can apply to any school in the city. But the state law governing charter schools treats high schools just like schools serving younger students: They are required to give priority in admissions to students living in their school district.

Because many charter schools have more applicants than seats, charter high schools necessarily end up with mostly students from their district. For that reason, “we’re actually a throwback to the zoned school,” Eddie Calderon-Melendez, the principal of Williamsburg Charter High School, told me last week at the lottery for the three schools in his Believe Network. (more…)

Steven Taveras holds up a card indicating that he was the first student selected for Believe Southside Charter High School.

Last week, most eighth graders in the city found out which high school had accepted them. Tonight, hundreds of eighth graders in Brooklyn learned whether they would be lucky enough to have a charter high school choice for this fall as well.

I joined hundreds of the hopeful eighth graders for an admission lottery trifecta held in Greenpoint tonight, the first time charter schools could legally conduct their lotteries. The students had all applied for one or more of the schools in the brand-new Believe High Schools Network. The first school in that network, Williamsburg Charter High School, opened in 2004, and two more, Believe Northside and Believe Southside, are set to open this fall. Before the lottery, WCS founding principal Eddie Calderon-Melendez told me that over 700 students had submitted applications for the 500 available spots, some applying to two or even all three of the schools.

“I can feel how nervous you are,” said City Council member Diana Reyna, who ceremonially drew the first names in the lottery, to a chorus of agreement. “My heart is racing as much as yours.”

The first two names drawn were for students who weren’t present. But when Steven Taveras heard his name called to be the first student selected for Believe Southside, he leapt from his seat and bounded to the front of the auditorium, where he was immediately pulled into a round of handshakes and photographs.

A few minutes later, the IS 318 student was still beaming, but he said he wasn’t sure why he’d be giving up his seat at nearby Progress High School. “Mommy picked everything,” his mother, Maria Taveras, interjected. (more…)