Ossining Charter School Pushes Ahead Despite Early-Round Rejection (NY)

September 14, 2010

An application to open a charter school — possibly in Ossining in 2011 — was rejected by the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, but will go before SUNY’s governing body this week for approval in the face of strong local objections.

A proposa l to form the Hudson River Charter School, an environmentally themed kindergarten-to-sixth-grade school, did not qualify for the second phase of the institute’s review process. The institute assists the SUNY board of trustees in evaluating charter school applications.

The applicants, a group of Westchester County residents, including educators and environmentalists, were informed in August that the institute did not deem the 793-page application "sufficient," spokeswoman Cynthia Proctor said.

When a charter school does not make it past the initial stage, applicants typically withdraw their proposal, Proctor said, or, in more rare instances, take it to the trustees with the institute’s "recommendation that it be denied." In this case, HRCS applicants will first go before the SUNY Education, College Readiness and Success Committee on Tuesday for a vote and then to the full, 17-member board of trustees on Wednesday for a final determination.

"The trustees have never approved a new school over the institute’s objections," Proctor said.

Lead applicant Gail Osterman, a retired school administrator from Pleasantville, and charter school board member Rudyard Whyte, a litigator from Scarsdale, did not return calls for comment.

This summer, when the Ossining community learned of the plan, residents and school officials voiced serious concerns, arguing that the charter school would have a severe financial impact on the Ossining Union Free School District, as well as duplicate curriculums, and would segregate Ossining’s students. Objections also were raised that applicants did not inform or involve the Ossining community in the plan.

"Our argument still stands that this i s an affront to Ossining, to our diversity and to our schools," longtime Ossining resident William Cowan said.

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 is located. There is one in Westchester, the Charter School of Educational Excellence in Yonkers.

On Tuesday, Ossining Schools Superintendent Phyllis Glassman sent a welcome-back letter to families that reiterated the district’s opposition to HRCS.

"I don’t understand the charter school’s blatant disregard for the Ossining community and the SUNY charter process," Frank Schnecker said.

The HRCS application included a petition with 418 signatures, along with letters of support from environmental heavyweights Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper.

Some of the issues the institute had with the application, Proctor said, included concerns about the proposed academic program. A report on the institute’s findings will not be made public until the trustees have reviewed it, she said.