Though charter schools in the city have been struggling to find classroom space, new legislation may make the process a lot more complicated.
Community Board 7, which represents the Upper West Side, passed a resolution on Tuesday night encouraging more community input when charter schools plan to open inside of public school space.
To New York City charter school advocates, however, that input is excessive red tape meant to handicap the expansion of charters, which are public schools accountable to the Department of Education but run by not-for-profit boards.
Assembly member Daniel O’Donnell, who represents Morningside Heights, recently introduced a bill that would require public school buildings in the city to go through an extensive public review process before leasing or selling space.
That process, called the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, mandates that a charter school looking for a home in a traditional public school building would have to submit an application to the Department of City Planning. This application would then be subject to a community board hearing, and ultimately require approval from the borough president, city planning commission, city council, and the mayor. From start to finish, this process can take as long as 215 days, according to City Planning.
The local CB7 resolution passed on Tuesday encourages the New York state assembly to pass O’Donnell’s bill, which is now sitting in the education committee.
Proponents of both O’Donnell’s bill and the CB7 resolution say this is a necessary step to give affected parents a voice to express their concerns about charter schools moving into their neighborhoods.
“We’re not saying no to charters at all,” CB7 member Helen Rosenthal said. “I think there would be a more positive relationship between charters and schools that share the space if we were able to work out space allocation problems … We wouldn’t have the frustrations that exist now between public school and charter school families.”
CB7, which represents the Upper West Side north to 110th Street, does not actually have any charter schools in its district, but does correspond with school district 3. District 3, which extends north to 120th Street, contains six charter schools—four of which share a building with a traditional public school.
Charter school proponents say that O’Donnell’s bill is a thinly-veiled attack on their schools, and would make it difficult for new charters to open at all.
Cara Volpe, a CB7 member who works for Teach for America and has worked at charter schools, voted against the resolution, and said that the length of the ULURP process is too long for schools trying to open quickly. “This potentially adds another year on before we can open our doors to serve underserved children.”
Shane Seger, spokesperson for O’Donnell, repeatedly asserted that painting this as an anti-charter bill would be a misconception.
“The Assemblymember [O’Donnell] holds one value very dear, and that is every time a government agency make a decision, in this case the placement of charter schools in public school buildings, there should be public comment available and that is why he proposed this bill,” he said.
But Volpe said that this could have drastic effects on the culture of charter schools in the city.
“I think it’s a roadblock and I think the end result will be a no for most schools,” she said, referring to the city council and community board votes. “I think the end result will be charters not being able to use public space.”
Peter Murphy, policy director at the New York Charter School Association, which advocates for charter schools, said on Tuesday he thought the legislation was offensive.
“What purpose is being served by putting in ULURP and making facilities even harder to obtain? There’s no child-centered focus here when you put up more and more roadblocks,” he said. “They’re trying to stop something good and this is nothing more then them protecting their turf,” he added.
Debates about overcrowding in the north part of the district have focused on charters and neighborhood schools coexisting in single buildings, and since January, Borough President Scott Stringer has convened a series of “war rooms” to deal with the issue.
Jeffrey Henig, a Teachers College professor of political science and education, said that this debate is actually a reflection of how well charter schools have fared locally over the last eight years. “Charter school advocates here expect to be welcomed to buildings, and they have been.”
He added, “But in most of the country ... they do have to battle to get access to buildings.”
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