By MICHAEL NUNES
Staff Writer
RED BANK — While members of the Red Bank Charter School (RBCS) licked their wounds over the state rejecting their enrollment expansion, members of the borough school system approved the decision while promoting their educational stance.
“I was very pleased when the decision came down from the state on [Feb. 29],” said Jared Rumage, superintendent of the Red Bank Borough Public Schools, about the RBCS’s proposed enrollment expansion that would have seen the student population double to 400 by the 2018-19 school year.
For Rumage, the months of debate allowed the district to show the community that the district schools are the “hidden gems” of the borough.
“Without questions as challenging as this has been, we took the opportunity [to show off our schools] and the community voiced their support,” said Rumage, adding that the long-held negative perceptions of the district schools were inaccurate no longer.
In a letter dated Feb. 29 and sent to RBCS, State Commissioner David Hespe said that, based on his review of the request and public comments, the application to expand was rejected.
According to the letter, “The New Jersey Department of Education has evaluated the school’s request based on a review of its academic, operational, and fiscal standing as well as analysis of public comments, fiscal impact on sending districts and other information in order to make a decision regarding the school’s amendment request.”
The letter also stated that Hespe supports RBCS’s “efforts to strengthen its academic program in order to improve student learning and outcomes.”
A press release from the New Jersey Department of Education approved 16 charter school expansion requests throughout the state, including seven in Newark.
Upon hearing of the rejection, officials at RBCS sent out a statement expressing their disappointment with the decision.
“The Red Bank Charter School is disappointed in the Department of Education’s decision to deny expansion to the charter school. This is a missed opportunity to have served Red Bank and an increased number of its economically disadvantaged students via the weighted lottery. We look forward to continuing to serve our students and families with a high-caliber education,” the statement said, which was attributed to Meredith Pennotti, who is the principal at RBCS.
Mayor Pasquale Menna took to Facebook to voice his approval of Hespe’s decision.
“The Commissioner of Education has denied the ill-conceived Charter School Expansion Plan for Red Bank. Thank you Commissioner. The denial represents a sound decision and is a favorable comment on the extraordinary accomplishments of the Red Bank Public School,” Menna wrote in a post on Feb. 29.
In January, Menna appointed a blue ribbon panel to investigate the effects of the proposed charter school expansion. After several weeks of deliberation, six of the seven members of the group concluded that the expansion would negatively impact taxes for residents as well as worsen the racial divide between the two schools.
In a report that was filed to the Department of Education, the blue ribbon panel called the Red Bank school district “the most segregated” in the state.
According to data provided by the borough public school on student demographics, out of the 1,400 students at the borough schools, 7 percent are white, 79 percent Hispanic and 9 percent black. At the charter school, of the estimated 200 students, 52 percent are white, 34 percent Hispanic and 12 percent black.
Robert Allison, the auditor for both the school district and the borough wrote to Hespe on Jan. 27 stating his belief [about] the negative impact the expansion would have on the school’s budget.
“I believe the impact would be devastating, even with maximizing the allowable increases in taxes, the district would have a four-year cumulative shortfall of somewhere between $1.8 and $2.2 million,” he wrote.
According to Rumage, the charter school receives $1.6 million in funding through the district.
Though he says there would be a lot of variables, such as the number of students attending the charter school from the district, he estimates that had the proposal been approved, the district would have had to give RBCS around $3 million in funding.
One member of the seven-person blue ribbon committee, Michael Stasi, who is a founding member of the charter school, wrote a separate letter on Jan. 26 to Hespe advising that academic achievement at the charter school should also be taken into consideration when making his decision as well as a weighted lottery would help the charter school serve more economically disadvantaged children.
For Rumage, any expansion of the charter school in the future would have a negative impact on the borough.
“Expansion today, tomorrow or any time would be devastating,” he said.