By Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
The issue of charter schools, their potential expansion and impact on school districts like Hillsborough will come to the forefront later this month, as the school board plans to weigh in on an ongoing matter in nearby Franklin Township., During its most recent meeting on Feb. 27, the Hillsborough Township Board of Education discussed a recent request from their counterparts in Franklin Township for support in their push for a “moratorium on new charter school seats in Middlesex and Somerset Counties” as they relate to new schools or expansions., “What Franklin is asking their neighboring districts to do is have a show of support,” board member Thomas Kinst said. “It’s not impacting our district directly and as elected officials for the residents of Hillsborough and Millstone, we’re responsible for the students in our district.”, According to Franklin Township’s resolution, the issue arose when some of the five existing charter schools in the area requested that the state Department of Education give them the approvals necessary to expand their operations., The schools in question are Hatikvah International Academy Charter School, Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School, Central Jersey College Prep Charter School, Greater Brunswick Charter School and the Academy for Urban Leadership Charter School. A sixth school, Ailanthus Charter School, is slated to open in 2018., In their resolution, Franklin officials warned that such expansions would increase the number of charter school seats by as much as 128 percent, causing undue strain to public school budgets in the process., “When a school receives its charter, there are certain communities by law that have to carve out part of their budget into support for anticipated enrollment in those districts,” Superintendent Dr. Jorden Schiff said., Under the Charter School Program Act of 1995, “the districts of residence pay the charter schools for each student from their respective communities enrolled in those schools.”, Whenever a charter school enters under a public school district, that district is responsible for paying for any students that attend the charter school, covering tuition, transportation and other related costs., Since school budgets are kept in check by the School Funding Reform Act and the two-percent tax levy cap, Franklin officials warned that increases in charter school funding would negatively impact students in the public school district., In order to ensure that there will be funding available for a charter school, Schiff said the Department of Education anticipates the enrollment and requires the local school board to allocate a certain percentage of its budget to cover that estimated enrollment a year in advance., “This could be in the millions of dollars and it’s not necessarily for existing students, but for predicted students,” he said. “There are some logistical issues when you have an initial charter, as well as when a charter expands.”, Though none of the charter schools affecting Franklin Township currently designate Hillsborough as a sending district, there are currently five Hillsborough students who attend charter schools., Some board members wondered why Hillsborough needed to weigh in on the topic at all, but Judith Haas pointed to two incidents within the last five years where charter schools could have impacted the school district., “While Hillsborough has gotten lucky in the past, we had charter school proposals back in 2011 and 2012” Haas said., In the case of those particular proposals, Haas said the district’s budget would have been hit for $1 million and $1.5 million, respectively., “Our board has taken positions on the 2011 and 2012 schools that were proposed to draw from Hillsborough and Franklin Township has basically asked all of the districts in Somerset and Middlesex Counties to join in the resolution,” Haas said., As someone who had been following the Franklin issue closely, Hillsborough Education Association President Henry Goodhue urged the board to consider the issue at hand before it actually affected the district’s budgets down the road., “As the second vice president of the Somerset County Education Association, I am intimately involved in what’s going on in Franklin,” Goodhue said. “It is extremely short sighted to assume that this won’t impact Hillsborough eventually.”, The board is expected to vote on a potential resolution of support during its March 13 meeting.
