We’re reporting here on the following news out of this morning’s NYSED Board of Regents meeting in Albany that we were able to attend. Renee Rider and David Frank from the NYSED Charter School office led the discussion regarding revisions and renewals for over twenty New York State charter schools.
The Board of Regents voted in favor of renewals for the following Board of Regents-authorized schools:
- Bronx Charter School for Children (Bronx)
- Williamsburg Charter High School (Brooklyn)
- Amani Public CS (Mount Vernon)
- Brooklyn Laboratory CS (Brooklyn)
- Discovery CS (Greece CSD/Rochester)
- Global Community CS (Manhattan)
- New York City Montessori CS (Bronx)
- Renaissance Academy CS for the Arts (Rochester)
- Vertus Charter School (Rochester)
The Board voted on revisions for the following Board of Regents-authorized schools:
- Evergreen CS (Hempstead)
- Neighborhood Charter School of Harlem (Manhattan)
- New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science IV (Queens)
- New Visions Charter HIgh School for the Humanities IV (Queens)
- Unity Preparatory CS of Brooklyn (Brooklyn)
The Board passed the motion for New York City Department of Education Chancellor Authorized renewals, which included:
- Imagine Me Leadership CS (Brooklyn)
- Renaissance CS (Queens)
- Peninsula Preparatory Academy CS (Queens)
- Metropolitan Lighthouse CS (Bronx)
- Dr. Richard Izquierdo Health and Science CS (Bronx)
The Board elected to send back the renewal requests from two Buffalo PS Board authorized schools— Enterprise Charter School and Westminster Community Charter School— with a recommendation for authorizing for no more than two years. The schools were deemed to have not met standards for SPED and ELL requirements, as well as failure to meet performance benchmarks.
In addition to these charter-specific topics, a big focus of the meetings this morning centered around the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. The State Education Department’s Board of Regents approved the implementation of their ESSA plan, best described as a series of federal regulations on how states can use federal funds in public schools. This follows a two-year process that included a public comment period during which NYSED received over 1,900 comments. NY spends about $1.6 billion that it receives annually under ESSA, which NYSED described as “a set of interlocking strategies to promote educational equity.”