A message from Cherry Hill, Voorhees and Somerdale superintendents on Regis Academy Charter School
As our school districts begin planning for the 2012–2013 school year, we face a new budgetary challenge — a requirement to set aside a combined $2.73 million from our district budgets to support a charter school approved by the state Department of Education.
Last spring, in response to the application from the Regis Academy Charter School, each of our districts submitted letters to the DOE outlining specific areas of concern.
First and foremost, we asked, where is the educational need for a charter school in communities that are well served by their existing public schools?
Suburban charter schools are a relatively new phenomenon in South Jersey, but the experiences of school districts in other parts of the state should raise red flags for our residents. In suburban school districts, funding for public education comes primarily from local property taxes. (Urban districts, by contrast, receive most of their funding in state aid.) Since funding for charter schools comes out of the budgets of the “sending” districts, the cost of funding suburban charter schools is borne largely by the taxpayers in those communities. Yet local taxpayers have no say in whether a charter school can open in or draw students from their district.
Across the United States, 90 percent of all charter school authorizers are local. But in New Jersey, the DOE has absolute authority on charter approvals.
The DOE farms out portions of the application review process to outside reviewers and only recently disclosed the names and qualifications of the reviewers; according to published reports, most are national or state charter school educators and advocates.
The DOE does not publicly release reviews of charter applications; in fact, it denied our request, made under the New Jersey Open-Public Records law, for the Regis Academy reviews.
The process for funding charter schools is as flawed as the approval process. As sending districts for Regis Academy, each of our school districts will receive a payment schedule based on enrollment projections developed by the charter school. In its first year of operation, Regis Academy is projecting that it will draw 169 students from Cherry Hill, 63 students from Voorhees, and 12 students from Somerdale.
Our payments to the charter school will begin in July 2012. If actual enrollments are below projected numbers, the payment schedule eventually will be adjusted, but by the time the enrollments are reconciled, we will be well into the 2012–2013 school year and the damage to our budgets will have been done.
How so? School districts are subject to a state-mandated budget growth cap of 2 percent. The amount we must set aside for this charter school ranges from 64 percent to more than 160 percent of the amount our budgets are allowed to grow next year.
There are hidden costs as well. Sending districts must pay to transport students to the charter school — or provide aid in lieu of transportation — in accordance with state guidelines. Sending districts will also be responsible for conducting any residency investigations that may be necessary to ensure that charter school students who claim to live in our towns are, in fact, our own.
In light of all this, it is particularly disheartening that Regis Academy’s budget earmarks more than $594,000 for administrative expenses — more than 21 percent of the amount the charter school will be receiving from taxpayers in our communities.
In an era when school districts and municipalities are urged to share services and identify cost efficiencies, we have very serious concerns about the creation of a charter school that will duplicate services, increase administrative costs, and divert resources from our successful public schools.
We encourage our residents to join us as we appeal the approval of this charter school. We also call on our legislators to fix New Jersey’s broken charter school law and bring local control to the charter school approval process.
Maureen Reusche, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Cherry Hill Public Schools
Raymond J. Brosel Jr.
Superintendent, Voorhees Public Schools
James H. Bathurst
Interim Superintendent, Somerdale Public Schools
