Hudson River Charter School Proposed, Many in District Object (NY)
July 13, 2010
An application to open a charter school possibly in Ossining in the fall of 2011 is being reviewed by the State University of New York C harter Schools Institute, while many residents of this river town are mobilizing to quash it.
A group of Westchester County residents, including educators and environmentalists, are looking to form the Hudson River Charter School, an environmentally themed, kindergarten-to-sixth-grade elementary school that would serve students countywide.
"The design elements are going to appeal to a specific segment of the population—parents who are looking for a strong environmental ethic for their child," said lead applicant, Gail Osterman, a retired school administrator who lives in Pleasantville. "This is about providing a choice."
Rudyard Whyte, a litigator from Scarsdale and proposed Hudson River Charter School board member, said Ossining is not a definite site and that it was used as an example in the application as one of several potential Westchester river towns.
Even so, the proposal has raised serious concerns in Ossining among several community members who have formed Ossining Strong to oppose the charter school. The group has, to date, collected some 654 signatures on a petition objecting to the plan. The Ossining Union Free School District, which held a June 16 public hearing on the plan, has received 199 letters against a charter school in Ossining, officials said.
Meanwhile, HRCS shows on its application a petition with 418 signatures, along with letters of support from environmental heavyweights Robert F. Kennedy, Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper.
Both Ossining residents and school officials have expressed objections to the severe financial burden, they argue, the charter school would have on the district, as well as duplicating curriculums and segregating Ossining’s students.
A charter school is a tuition-free public school that is overseen by a state educational agency and receives funding from the school district where it’s located. Westchester has only one, the Charter School of Educational Excellence in Yonkers.
Frank Schnecker, who graduated from Ossining High School in 1989, said he experienced segregation in the 1970s, when Ossining had "neighborhood schools." A charter school, he said, poses those risks.
"Ossining has been working for 30 to 40 years to implement justice into its school system," he said. "I don’t see how another school, marketing itself to affluent families, is going to extend that justice."
Board of Education member Alice Joselow said the HRCS group underestimates the number of Ossining students expected to attend the school. According to its application, HRCS anticipates bringing in 12 Ossining students the first year at a cost of $195,516 to the district.
But Joselow said the district’s research shows between 30 percent and 66 percent of HRCS’s first-year enrollment would come from Ossining, taking more than $1 million and $2.2 million, respectively, from the school budget. The only way to make that up, Joselow said, is to decrease services.
The HRCS board members maintained they are looking to draw students from throughout Westchester. They calculate, in their application, pulling 0.3 percent of the total student population from each of the school districts within 15 miles of their site to reach their first-year enrollment figure.