Charter school draws discussion

The idea of giving frustrated parents a choice versus working to improve a challenged school system dominated discussion during a public hearing Wednesday for a proposed charter school in the city.

Re’shawn Rogers, founder and proposed head of school at Destine Preparatory Charter School, told the audience during the virtual session that after hearing concerns in meetings with community residents, Destine will feature an extended school day and school year, two teachers in classrooms during reading and math time, Spanish as a second

language starting in the second grade and will make safety a priority.

“We believe that Destine Prep will be a community school informed by the community and for the community,” Rogers said.

Several Destine board members extolled the virtues of their school. Other speakers were more conflicted.

Destine’s application, which is still under review by the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, would target more marginalized neighborhoods like Hamilton Hill, Vale and Eastern Avenue, which its founders identified in paperwork as the “most in need of high-quality free education.”

If approved, the school would initially open with about 104 students in kindergarten and first grade in the fall of 2022 and then add a grade each year for the next four years until it serves 390 students through fifth grade.

Destine’s proposal indicates the total expected revenue from the district in the charter school’s first year would be about $1.53 million, rising to $5.8 million in the fifth year.

Neimra Coulibaly wondered whether the charter school would be beneficial to students of color or “is it something that is going to be taking away from all the students in the community?”

“I feel like one of the best options would be better investing into the school district that we already have and making that the best that it could possibly be,” said Coulibaly, a product of Schenectady schools. “This whole idea of school choice wouldn’t even be choice if the Schenectady district was doing what they actually need to do.”

Oriana Miles, another Schenectady schools graduate who currently teaches at Schenectady High School, said that charter schools start off with good intentions but later become “super-punitive.”

She also noted that the city school district has for years been shortchanged when it comes to state financial aid and that students of color often lag behind their white counterparts when it comes to academic achievement.

“No one can argue with the data that our students of color are struggling because of racism, but it is hard for me to say that instead of fixing where we are that serves a huge entire population that we should to just move over to this other place that serves a smaller population,” said Miles.

Parent Kristine Moore, who has four children in the district and is an educator, said while choice is important so too is parental involvement, which she contends is lacking in Schenectady.

Karen Lewis with the Schenectady County NAACP chapter, also a teacher in the district, said the civil rights organization does not support charter schools.

She later pleaded with exasperated parents encouraging them to reach out to her and other teachers in the district who she said care deeply for students and want to help in any way they can.

Raysheea Turner, Destine Prep’s proposed board chair, said she didn’t receive much support from the school district when she called about signing her young son up so she opted to have him attend Catholic school.

“If Schenectady public schools wanted it to be about the children and make the schools better, that’s what they would have done a long time ago,” added Turner, who graduated from Schenectady High School and is an attorney.

She recounted graduating early despite not getting the support she needed from her high school counselor or the choice to go to another school.

Bill Mccoll told the group that he is against charter schools because they are anti-democratic, anti-union and do not perform better than public schools.

He pointed to the dozen or so charter schools that have been in Albany, which he characterized as a “plethora of failures.”

Robert Giordano, who works for the charter school industry but has no ties to Destine, disagreed with Mccoll, saying “democracy is choice, quality of choice,” arguing that “there’s huge pent-up demand in Schenectady for parental choice that’s outside of the district.”

Cheryl Lare, another Destine Prep board member, said she has spoken to teachers in the Schenectady school district who have shared with her that they don’t feel that academics is a priority and parents are trapped with no choice close to home.

“I know people are saying ‘charter school or the city school district’ like it’s some sort of competition but I think there could be a partnership,” she said, citing New York City as an example where that happens.