Proposed New Rochelle charter school would focus on STEM. If it can overcome opposition

A proposed charter school in New Rochelle that could open as early as the 2025-26 school year faces staunch opposition from the city's public school district.

The charter school's founder, Ivan Green, an adjunct professor at Iona University and principal of St. Stanislaus Kostka Catholic Academy in Brooklyn, said the school would address disparities within the New Rochelle school district. He posits that the city's schools do not offer enough STEM instruction (science, technology, engineering and math), particularly in the younger grades, and that schools in lower socioeconomic areas of New Rochelle have fewer resources.

"There's a gap. There's a need for another choice," Green said in an interview. MSLT Academy would introduce more minority and low-income students to STEM, he said.

Green said he doesn't live in New Rochelle but has family there.

But Corey Reynolds, the district's superintendent, said Green's assessment is wrong.

Reynolds said the district has a "vibrant" science, technology and math program from K-12, and pointed to the district's award-winning science research program, its forensics program and other AP and dual enrollment programs with colleges.

Reynolds said the district's most economically challenged schools "actually see more opportunities for student involvement, for student participation, for family programming, than other schools," Reynolds said.

Comparing test scores

Green pointed to state Education Department data that showed New Rochelle's minority students and English language learners graduate at lower rates and perform worse on standardized tests than the overall student body.

Last school year, 55% of New Rochelle third-graders were considered proficient in math, according to state test results. While 75% of white third-graders were proficient, 42% of their Black peers and 46% of their Hispanic peers were proficient.

Similar disparities exist statewide — and have for as long as standardized tests have been given to students. Last year, for example, 54% of New York's third-graders were considered proficient in math, with 60% of white students proficient, compared to 44% of Black students and 42% of Hispanic students.

One of the charter school's areas of focus would be on making sure students don't fall behind if they can't speak English, Green said.

Reynolds again questioned Green's case.

"I can't see any fledgling school even meeting the needs of our students on a basic level compared to what it is that we offer to our students," Reynolds said.

Charters often face local opposition

If the proposed charter school, called the Mathematics, Science, Language and Technology Academy Public Charter School, is approved, it would join only three other charter schools in the Lower Hudson Valley. Two are located in Mount Vernon and one in Yonkers.

Other charter school proposals in the region have faced heated opposition going back two decades, and the role of charter schools remains a major point of debate in education.

Green said the school district's opposition stems from a worry the charter school will make the district look bad.

Green said he's received many emails from parents interested in learning more about the proposed charter school. The next town hall about the proposal will be April 25 at 6 p.m. at the New Rochelle Public Library.

But the district's PTA Council has been collecting its own reactions from the community in the form of signatures on a petition urging SUNY to deny the school's application. Mary Monzon, president of the PTA Council, said the petition has received over 1,200 signatures.

Monzon said in an interview there was nothing the charter school could provide that the district does not already offer.

New Rochelle Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert said in a statement that she joins the district "in not supporting the creation of a charter school in New Rochelle."

Money follows students to charter schools

Charter schools outside New York City are approved by the state Board of Regents or the State University of New York Board of Trustees. Green is seeking his charter from SUNY. Initial charter contracts are for five years and then must be renewed.

A SUNY spokesperson said the deadline for the next round of charter school applications outside of New York City is June 3. The SUNY Trustees Charter School Committee will then vote on the applications in the fall 2024.

Charter schools are public schools and funded by tax dollars, though they operate under different rules and generally don't have unions. Green noted charter schools can also raise funds.

When students attend a charter schools, their home school district must forward a set amount of money to the charter school. So school districts often protest against the loss of funds when opposing charter schools.

"It's more about money for them," Green said of the district's opposition.

Reynolds said the New Rochelle district would lose about $19,000 for each student who goes to the charter school. But if a student changes their mind and returns to the district in the same year, the funding doesn't follow them back for that year, Reynolds said.

A statement from the PTA Council said that the diversion of funding would leave the district with the same fixed costs but less money to pay them.

Plans to expand

MSLT Academy would be located at 83 Clove Road, in the former Holy Family School. Green said the charter would lease the building from the Archdiocese of New York.

Green said the school would start with kindergarten through 2nd grade, with plans to expand up to grade 12 over a five-year period. The school building has room for grades K-8, so the charter school would look at eventually housing high schoolers in another building.

Green estimated each grade would have about 80 students.

Stephen Mayo, a spokesperson for MSLT Academy, who has been on boards of three Bronx charter schools, said in an interview New Rochelle could benefit from an alternative choice to the traditional public schools.

Mayo, an attorney, podcast host and former city council and school board candidate who sent his three kids to New Rochelle public schools, noted the success of charter schools in the Bronx and said that charter schools can offer greater parental involvement. The proposed charter school isn't anti-union or for-profit, he added. And students are chosen through a lottery system.

"Perhaps our goals of inclusive excellence and 'consumer choice' offend the sense of snobbish entitlement that has characterized our city-suburb's political establishment for so long," Mayo said in a text.

Contact Diana Dombrowski at ddombrowski@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @domdomdiana.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Proposed STEM charter school in New Rochelle NY faces opposition