Yes, this is symbolic, but we’ve come a long way.
The Wilmington City Council sent a request to state leaders Thursday night: Don’t allow any more charter schools to open in the city for the time being, and give the city more say over which schools get approved.
Council approved 9-3, with President Theo Gregory absent, a resolution urging the Department of Education not to consider any new charter applications in the city to “allow elected officials and community representatives time to assess the impact of charter schools in Wilmington and throughout the State.”
Impact is the key word and one of the biggest problem with charters – their impact on surrounding neighborhoods and schools isn’t really considered – and even though the new charter law pays lip service to impact, impact alone isn’t enough to stop a charter from entering a community. Try building an addition to your house without community approval. Maybe labeling the addition as a charter school would be the way to go!
Whether or not a community wants a charter in their neighborhood doesn’t matter. As long as a charter follows state law they can pretty much go where they want. Westgate Farms fought against Odyssey Charter moving in. They eventually won by focusing on the historic location. Good thing a cemetery was located there. Otherwise, Odyssey could have moved in – no matter what the surrounding community thought or wanted.
Midtown Brandywine (a city neighborhood) is the latest community facing a charter school moving in. Their complaints are familiar – they have no voice. Exceptional Delaware covered this yesterday:
Freire Charter School, scheduled to open in the 2015-2016 academic year is already causing huge problems for the neighborhood it will be housed in. According to one area resident, this small neighborhood of 220 will be faced with an initial 224 students being transported to the school via DART or walking to the school. The school was previously going to be located at 920 French St. in Wilmington, but was moved to 201 W. 14th Street.
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Current estimates by the school are to have 560 students by the 2018-2019 year.
If you aren’t familiar with Midtown Brandywine, you should go take a look – go drive those narrow city streets. Freire (a charter whose “special interest” is zero tolerance) will be smack dab in the middle of that neighborhood. And the idea that the community won’t be impacted by this school is nuts.
Many years ago my kids attended the Academy of the Dance and the drop off and pick up of that small business created quite a back up in Midtown Brandywine. During that time the community was dealing with 15 – 20 ballerinas staggered over various class times. Now imagine 224 (eventually 560) students being dropped off and picked up in the morning and afternoon. No wonder this community is concerned. The traffic will be horrendous. And the idea that traffic will not be a problem because students will not be dropped off and picked up by car, or they will take DART or walk, is ludicrous.
A Midtown Brandywine resident shared their concerns on Facebook:
Thank you to Red Clay Education Association President, Mike Matthews, for adding Midtown Brandywine Neighborhood Wilmington DE‘s concerns as he addressed the State Board of Education today! Little did we know that on 12-31-14, the Freire School reps submitted a request for a Major Modification of their application for a Charter. Reasons: lower than expected student registrations; change in building (they had planned to be on French Street); need for less space (due to lower than expected enrollment); no cafeteria on site. The reason for the Modification request? To remain eligible for $687,000 federal/state start-up funds. My questions? Why wasn’t this mentioned by Freire reps at our Tuesday Board meeting, and why isn’t this money being spent to bolster our existing public schools that really need it, instead of a Philadelphia-based organization?
It wasn’t mentioned because Freire didn’t need to mention it to the community, and mentioning it could only cause problems for Freire’s plans. The resident sent a letter to the Secretary of Education about the neighborhood’s concerns which prompted this comment from Mike Matthews:
You sent your letter to the secretary of education. I’ve learned that he did NOT share the letter with the state board. Oh my!
Oh my, indeed.
I’m not sure City Council’s vote last night will make a difference, but it does send a message. A message I hope is heard. It’s past time residents have a say – and a vote – into what’s allowed in their communities. School districts can’t build new schools without getting community support. The same should be true for charter schools.