By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Opponents of the proposed enrollment expansion of the Princeton Charter School have mobilized to use the arm of the municipal government and the school district to marshal opposition to the Charter School wanting to add 76 more pupils, a request that the Christie administration will decide in the coming months., The very public contretemps comes in a community that has enjoyed, at best, an uneasy relationship with the 20-year-old charter school. Located in a high-performing school district, it gets most of its funding — around $5 million annually — from the local board of education, a source of friction among critics who still question why Princeton has a charter school in the first place and then resent the loss of funds from the district budget to support it., Mayor Liz Lempert, who helped start a statewide organization that has been critical of charter schools, entered the fray on Monday by saying she opposed the enrollment expansion., “I’m against it,” she told reporters at her press conference. “I’m concerned about the impact it will have to the full district because of the expense of it.”, The school district has said the enrollment expansion would mean $1.16 million more a year it would have to provide the Charter School, which gets funded by local and state tax dollars. The Charter School contends the expansion would help toward the diversity of its student body and to soften enrollment growth at other schools in the district., “She obviously sees that taking $1.1 million from the public school budget would be devastating to the programs in the district for all of our children and that it’s not the right approach and it’s not what’s best for our community and our kids,” said Princeton school board President Patrick Sullivan, by phone Tuesday, about the mayor’s comments. “I think that she sees the merit in not doing this.”, The school district this week was scheduled to have Julia Sass Rubin, a Rutgers University professor who helped start Save Our Schools New Jersey, make a series of presentations, on Wednesday and Thursday, to parents and the community about the impact the expansion would have on the district. She has been critical of charter schools, and is also the wife of newly elected Princeton school board member Greg Stankiewicz., “What is going on in Princeton is not at all unusual. This happens in every town especially in suburban districts. The opposition and amount is neither unanticipated, unexpected or unusual,” said Paul Josephson, president of the Charter School Board of Trustees on Thursday., Acting-state Education Commissioner Kimberly Harrington will decide the Charter School’s application, likely in March. The Christie administration has been seen as pro-charter school., Princeton Charter, established in 1997, is home to around 340 pupils in grades K-8., “Princeton Charter School is an excellent public school that offers parents and students in Princeton a high quality alternative, which they are clearly demanding. The demand for the school exceeds its capacity — it’s application to expand addresses the needs of families currently on the waiting list,” said Amanda F. Vega-Malinowski, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Charter Schools Association. “The New Jersey Department of Education has measures in place to ensure that a public charter school’s impact on local school districts is considered with all expansion requests.”, For her part, Mayor Lempert said she would prefer to see voters decide any expansion at a referendum. She said New Jersey has a “flawed” charter school law because it does not give local towns “any say in what happens.”, “I feel that a question of whether the Charter School should expand is something that should be made here in Princeton and not in Trenton,” she said., “Contrary to the position of charter opponents,” said Ms. Vega-Malinowski, “expansion is not undemocratic; rather, it is an acknowledgement of the rights of an important minority of parents who want the best for their children. To dismiss these waiting list families and others who seek a public school alternative is to succumb to a tyranny of the majority.”, This comes with the school district suing the Charter School by alleging it had violated the state ‘s Open Public Meetings Act. “In essence we are claiming that the community was not properly informed that the PCS trustees were intending to take action to approve an application to increase the school’s enrollment, and that as a result, the court should invalidate that action,” Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane said last week., In choosing sides in the debate, Mayor Lempert, a public school mom who sent one child through the district and has another still in it, found herself staying true to her base. She has allies within the larger public school community; she built up her network of supporters among fellow parents in the Littlebrook Elementary School area of town., Also, she helped start Save Our Schools NJ, which, among other things, has backed legislation to require local voter approval before charter schools can open or expand in their communities., Audrey Chen, a Princeton resident active with that organization, went to the Princeton Council Monday asking officials to support a resolution opposing the expansion proposal. In appealing to the governing body, she found allies who shared her view., “I do see this as harming the open public schools,” said Councilman Timothy K. Quinn, a former Princeton school board member who served on the board at a time of heightened tensions between the district and the Charter School. “It seems to me that the Charter trustees, through their total lack of transparency, have given us a chance to take part in a conversation here. Remember that this is a self-appointed board that made a decision that’s affecting everyone in town.”, During the meeting, Mr. Quinn sought to recall comments by Mr. Cochrane favoring a merger of the charter school with the school district. He said the superintendent believes a consolidation “would eliminate the need for a facilities referendum in the public schools.” Mr. Quinn said people in the community are “nervous” and “terrified” about the upcoming referendum, “which has the potential to cause a significant tax increase.”, But Mr. Sullivan said the district would not be willing to forgo a referendum even if there is a merger., “The thing is that we’re seeing growth in our district and we have for a while,” he said. “We’re studying what we need at this point. But we think that we’re going to have to do a bond referendum at some point in the near future. And that’s due to the overall growth of the system.”, Mr. Sullivan offered that a merger would have financial benefits, without compromising the education of Charter School pupils., “So if we were able to merge, we think we could save significant costs throughout the system and still give the Charter School students the kind of education that their parents and other people expect,” he said. “But it wouldn’t mean that we wouldn’t have to do a bond referendum. Because of the growth, we’d have to do something, we think, but we haven’t come to a final conclusion on that.”, For his part, Councilman Lance Liverman said he would like to hear, from Charter School officials, the rationale behind wanting to add more students. The council is expected to revisit the issue at its Jan.23 meeting, with Mr. Quinn and Mr. Liverman agreeing to draft a resolution., Some officials expressed concern that the issue would dominate the council meeting by bringing people out to comment on the matter. “We’re going to have a whole meeting that’s going to be about this if we do this,” said Council President Jenny Crumiller., Mia Sacks, a Charter school parent, who also worked on Mr. Quinn’s recent political campaign, on Monday shared with council the turmoil in the community., “I’m not weighing in on how you should word the resolution. But I think that you have an armed standoff,” she said. “And everybody is suffering — families on both sides. I think that there’s a lot more at stake than the $1.2 million. The situation, as it stands now, is not viable.”, With reporting by Erica Chayes Wida
